Seasons Q&A

[Miradus]

I think, fundamentally, some people fail to grasp how connected some of us can get to our little characters and their little lives.

My character's life is no longer in my hands. My character will end in X months.

This drives a complete stake in the heart of the game for me. I remember characters who lived for in-game years and I aspired to be one of them. That's gone.

This is a big problem I'm having with it (one of many). I don't want to write a 50 page dissertation on why I hate this idea, so I'll just grab snippets and chime in.

My average character lives about 2-6 weeks. I think I've gotten a few up to 2 months. I'm almost always a villain. I guarantee the majority of you have heard the names of some of them.

Just having a time limit over my head, not just this looming one right now, but the concept of 'a season' .. even if it's 10x as long as I usually live ... for some reason just having that time limit just ruins the whole concept.

Having a potential, even a difficult and mostly unreachable  one, is superior to a 'hard no'.

[Miradus]

My loathing is of the down-time. It's exactly why I've asked if I can help build. It'll keep me involved in the game even while the game is shut down between seasons. In addition, I believe that additional builders can reduce that down-time. The more people working on the game when they're NOT also having to deal with plotlines, requests, wishes, etc, the quicker the game re-opens.

Okay, this is a second thing I don't like. Most of my RL hobbies are already seasonal. Gardening, fishing, etc. But the mud is always on, I can play it while I'm working, etc.

From having run multiple games, I can tell you that having multiple builders don't help as much as you think. You got to train them, you got to supervise them, you got to review their work for errors but also thematic consistency. Even in a game like Arm where 90% of the room descs are identical to a region, there's issues.

[betweenford]

The game already sees less player support and animations in it than games with 2 staff members who occasionally hop on to do things like Harshlands.

There is absolutely zero trust here that concentrating all the players in specific areas during "seasons" will actually accomplish any meaningful change. Every single thing they're touting on discord and here can literally have been done in the current system and through months and years, staff just don't. A hard reset or a soft reset won't fix that staff culture.

[Miradus]

This is not the time for "no negativity" and "staff is doing a wonderful job."

Better be able to speak the hard truths without butt-kissing or I feel we're going to either lose our game or get back something that is unrecognizable and not-fun.

[Jarvis]

Whilst I like the idea of changing up the timeline and the setting and shrinking the world in order to concentrate more playerbase together, everything else ranges from feeling unecessary to straight up removing interest from playing (even being fully aware that even my longest lived character hasn't crossed the 18 month mark. Its just a kind of pressure that makes everything the character does meaningless, its irrational)

Especially having a limited time to develop/grind out a character. I know some people love that, but some others just feel like its now a chore/job. There are also a range of issues with the code and gameplay that staff just keep ignoring and/or refusing to change despite the player demographic changing.

I like that staff is open to big changes since rigidity is what will ultimately kill this game, but this doesn't feel like the right direction. I'd be a lot happier with closing things, concentrating players, shrinking maps, and fixing issues that have existed since forever.

PS: This is something I've thought about recently and this seems like a good place to put it, maybe this is a complete illusion of mine and my brain just fully developed/I got better at not dying, but RPTs have felt very stakeless during the time I played, and designed to be safe and with padded corners. The game and its setting seem to be losing the initial edge that attracted me to it.

[DustMight]

There won't be a game to play when this change kills it.

I feel this.
I have been a player for a _long_ time and though I rarely get into character any longer, this makes me quite sad. I recently started a new character and feel that investing time, even now, is rather pointless. And I don't want to play a character that will be wiped every few months or even every year artificially (somehow dying to my own stupidity feels better? IDK). This has really sapped my energy to play _right now_.  Why? There is nothing to strive for.

Permadeath is one thing but this is something else completely. Ultimately if staff cannot commit to a theme and a world, how do you expect players to meaningfully commit to a character. Better to just shutter the game. 

That said, the decision has been made, obviously. I do not think that Armageddon will survive this. There are better options and that said I'm sure the staff has thought about them and discarded them for various reasons so I won't waste time by bringing them up now.

So long and thanks for all the scrab!

Ah, fek, I'll add a bit more - how can I not? I love this game >as it is<.
I remember when halflings and mantis were playable and have played a few. I remember building a wagon of Kurac with my dwarf merchant - I remember when the game would go down on Saturdays and you need special permission (which I got) to log in and play. I remember when on those saturdays we were often locked within Allanak. I remember when Tuluk was fun to play in! ;-)

Player consolidation was never well done by the team except accidently - and crushing everyone today would create the friction and heat needed for passionate roleplaying. Why they didn't really limit quit locations, reduce cities to just one (or destroy them both) I'll never know.  The game seems like a adventure game but it's really an interaction game - so exploring new eras isn't where it's at. That's not the exciting part. Playing for 10, 20, 30 years and discovering something new >right under your nose< is exciting, not knowing what the fellow you are talking to is capable of is exciting. Those things don't need "eras" and "shutdowns." These things literally make the game.

Alright. I'm done now. It's only 0930 here, but I need a drink. Peace.

Final edit:
I'm pleased, if that's the word for it, that my very first character, a female half-breed water witch, started in the same location that my (apparently) very last character is currently. 

[Dracul]

I'm going to miss armageddon. I enjoyed it a lot.

Will I like the new game? Maybe? Even if I enjoy it will I begrudge staff for the way this is being done? Yes.

[zilcho]

I think, fundamentally, some people fail to grasp how connected some of us can get to our little characters and their little lives.

My character's life is no longer in my hands. My character will end in X months.

This drives a complete stake in the heart of the game for me. I remember characters who lived for in-game years and I aspired to be one of them. That's gone.

Your character's life is /never/ in your hands. It never was. It has always been in the hands of whoever or whatever is trying to kill you. If your character survived, then you had a lucky break. It might not be so lucky next time.

Yes, forces outside of my choices can impact my character - those choices are organic and come from the choices of other characters. But I still have agency. Choices I made are a part of what outcomes befall my characters. Was I rude to a powerful tavern sitter? Did I try to fight 4 raiders?

An artificial Best By date imposed on all characters is completely different.

[zilcho]

I came back after a multi year break, began working on a character and this is what happens?

I'm in exactly the same position as you. But I think we need to step back and try to look at the bigger picture. There won't be a game to play in a while if we keep going as-is.

The obsession with playercounts I see boggles my mind. Every time I login since I started playing again last week I've found people to play with. I've started building friendships and doing more than just riding out to kill X beast. No, it isn't like the glory days of the mid 2000s when I would login and couldn't even play in the Gaj without getting a headache because there was too much talking and emoting to follow it all.

Judging by the vote tally, this change is going to drive away more players than currently like it.

Will it attract more players than those it's driving away? I think it's hard to answer that question given my obvious bias and contempt for this change. I would genuinely be shocked if so.

But I base that primarily on a simple fact - Muds in general are as niche of a gaming community as I can imagine. I don't believe this drastic change is going to result in a sudden influx of players and a revitalizing of the medium.

Muds are a dying game platform. Some of us will probably always want to play one every now and then but the days of muds growing are long, long gone. I'd rather not hasten their end. Certainly for me I went from excited to login today to completely bummed out and sapped of enthusiasm to play.

[DustMight]

Actually, in reflection maybe this is a good thing. A good thing that in a sense once the staff realize that without their players the game doesn't work they'll finally see that all they have is a dusty museum to what once was and what could have been. Over the 30 years that I've played there have been numerous threads and staff/player drama and these have never really changed the culture at the top. This is just another example, I think.

Loads of new players are not going to join up to a text-based game and older players will fall away very fast. I mean - we've already started, right?

It would have been more respectful to the game and the players to just shut the game down forever in a month after an apocalyptic HRPT and walk away. But that has never been the way it is done here.

[Dune Bunny]

Prefacing this to say that I'm not upset at staff for this choice, as they're doing what they feel is best to keep the game alive. That said, I hate it. So much.

The allure to Arm for me, since late 2003, has been that it's a wide open, persistent world. If I want to wake up in Red Storm, and go wrestle some Kryl in the Grey, that's what I'm gonna do. Likely won't survive, but the world was available for me to do it.

From the feel of things now, it seems like I'm gonna wake up in Red Storm, start north for my Wrestlekrylia debut, and find out that for some reason, there's an invisible wall at the north end of the Salt Flats that I can't pass, because the Season is based in this part of the world. If that's the case, it really doesn't sit well with me.

I'd have much more preferred to see things take place in the current game to consolidate things and work toward bringing players into more of a central hub. I feel like there was entirely too much expanding as of late, putting people into remote areas of the game (Such as Thryzn, I've seen ONE Thryzn PC since they were added.)

Instead of going for seasonal play, perhaps some other options could be explored first that take place in the actual, living world?

Take the GMH issues for example. I see talk of how the Houses feel empty with so many people spread out across them... Why not run a major plotline in the game where there's a (possibly very hostile) merger/takeover of the four major houses? Nenyuk starts throwing their billions around, and next thing you know, Salarr, Kadius, Kurac are on life support, and have to submit. We then have the East Ind... Erm, the MCB Trading Company, and one large House for PCs to join and interact in. Instead of logging in now to only have your Merchant standing around, you get to log in to multiple merchants/crafters around, as they're all in the same House, living in the same compound.

Maybe have another city takeover, such as when Allanak had control of Tuluk? It spanned across the world, but things were consolidated. Instead of 7463 Noble Houses, there was like, 6.

Have a "tribal alliance" of sorts that works a lot like the GMH idea above. You can still be Muark, or Arabet, etc, but that's just your bloodline/background, because now, the tribes had to all band together to fight off the gith menace, etc.

Mass amounts of options are great, but only really work with an expansive player base, and it has felt to me that options kept breeding as numbers shrunk, which has led to the mostly dead-feeling world that we have now.


Optionally, why not mix the two ideas?

Run seasons, but do it in the current, wide-open world?

Make your announcement of "Season 1 will begin on X, and will take place in Y. During this time, play will only be supported in Y. If you choose to make Z your home, do not expect support of any kind, as staff will be putting their time and resources into Y."

This will allow the staff to focus on their area of choice, making it a prime place to play for PCs, while also allowing the outliers to still enjoy the game in their own ways outside of it. It also allows players to continue on after a season ends, if they so happen to enjoy that pc. They can then either play as an outlier to keep that character, or perhaps migrate to the area of the new season when it comes around.

That then eliminates the 'why does it matter?' impending doom of all pcs in a season. I know that when I played Nell, if I'd have been told that her story ends on this exact date, no matter what, I'd have never played her as ambitiously as I did, feeling like it would just be a waste to make it that long, and not have the horrible ending that befalls all pcs.

The idea of Seasons wiping everyone out at the end date just has that feel to me. This basically feels like playing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and not an RPI.


That said, I'm really hoping for the best out of all of this. Arm has been a pretty fun hobby for at least a third of my life, and I'd hate to see it close down, whether I'm playing actively or not. I have no doubt that my above ideas might be pretty flawed, but I'm just spitballing things in a hope to see the game not become something so completely different than it was meant to be.

[Halaster]

If time jump from season to season X is say 200 years into the future, could I play a descendent of my old character?  Say I start player clan hunting company X in a season, it flourishes throughout the years, can I come back as Merchant/Hunter Douche, the great grandson of my old character?  As a way to sorta continue the story?

As a general answer:  quite possibly.  We'll want to handle that on a case-by-case basis, but as a general rule of thumb, yes we'll allow that sort of thing.  We'd work the details out with you.

While you're tinkering with skills for faster skill advancement, will you be working on magick and the RNG'ness of it?

Can you be more specific what about the "RNG'ness" of it you mean?  If it's to 'sensitive', him me up via request or discord or something.

Will we see major law changes throughout time?  Will we see an Allanak that doesn't give a fuck about spice?  Will we see a more built up Luirs with apartments and such, bordering on potential city feel that everyone has asked for now that we are shifting between hundreds of years of time?

Yes as a general rule.  This is part of the vision, making adjustments like this that change the dynamic in some way, explore new ideas.

Will Mantis/Gith and Halfling become playable races again?  If we shoot backwards hundreds of years, they should be I would think.

While there's not a specific plan for that yet, yes all those things are possible.

[slipshod]

can we get a more explicit and official explanation of how resolutions of current plotlines could potentially influence the new iteration of the game?

[Miradus]

What I would want out of 'seasons' is player agency.

I don't want ANOTHER railroad plot/dinner theatre.

I would want actions from one season to result in the next season. And I never want to play a historical season or flashback season. That is terrible. I don't even like reading books that have a flashback.

[Yam]

Halaster, what are you planning to do with the codebase, documentation, etc of Armageddon if you decide to close the game?

[Halaster]

Why not just.. leave the game  running and build what you're building on the test server, and then have a few days down time, not a few /months/?  Months of not being able to play at all is going to destroy the playerbase.

We don't want to try to build the new one and support the existing one.  We want to be able to solely focus on preparing for the new game without the distraction of the old.  So, what if we just leave it running without any staff oversight?  That still leads to more work than one might think.  Someone still has to approve apps, someone still has to answer some requests.  What if player start cheating, or doing things that break the rules?  We have to stop and handle that.  We have to stop and handle complaints.  If we don't, then Armageddon just becomes "that game that has no staff and you can do anything" while we work on the new one.

That's just not what we want to happen.  We want to make sure the existing game is going to have oversight and guidance until it closes, if nothing else so that what happens IC has an impact on the first season.  That doesn't happen if we just ignore it.

Where is the vote on this to your current playerbase?

Where is the talks about this being an option before you pulled the trigger, to your current player base?

There wasn't one, this isn't a democracy.  Staff's job is to provide a vision and direction for their game.  This is ours for ArmageddonMUD.

Why not open another server to do this little idea of yours to see it works instead of kill switching the main game?

See above about not wanting to run two games at once.

What was the point in putting so many rolecalls out recently?

That was a mistake, the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, and is regrettable.

[Halaster]

Halaster, what are you planning to do with the codebase, documentation, etc of Armageddon if you decide to close the game?

We're not currently planning to close the game.  If that ever happens, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

[DustMight]

...this isn't a democracy.  Staff's job is to provide a vision and direction for their game.  This is ours for ArmageddonMUD.

Hal, man, what you say here is absolute truth and an absolute shame.

[Yam]

Halaster, what are you planning to do with the codebase, documentation, etc of Armageddon if you decide to close the game?

We're not currently planning to close the game.  If that ever happens, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

There wasn't one, this isn't a democracy.  Staff's job is to provide a vision and direction for their game.  This is ours for ArmageddonMUD.

Uh-huh. Well, I hope you aren't the only one with access to or copies of everything. Staff direction may not be democratic, but you're acting like you own the game and community.

[Kestria]

...this isn't a democracy.  Staff's job is to provide a vision and direction for their game.  This is ours for ArmageddonMUD.

Hal, man, what you say here is absolute truth and an absolute shame.

It's because it is a selfish Dictatorship, of a few people, over the many.

It is so damn sad to see what we have all built together over the years go to shit, and we have no say in it whatsoever, because of a few with dictator power.

[Miradus]

It's not toxicity. I think they really do think this is the best way to save the game (even though I don't think the game is in any need of saving right now).

But I think they are definitely forgetting that players absolutely get the final say in a game as they exercise the only vote that matters ... the vote with their feet.

At this point I don't know what problem is being solved in this. I see it as doubling down on the problems, not a solution. Staff finds it a headache to do so much work? Awesome. The solution is more work?

Declining player counts? People finding other things to do with their free time? Awesome. Let's give them extended downtimes to go find another game, at which point they'll need to come back and relearn their old favorite one.

With the absolute pushback against this change ... I would suspend it for now, talk about it with the players, and see if we can't collectively come up with a couple of other solutions to try FIRST.

[Kavrick]

I know that staff have pretty much never been good at communicating but "this isn't a democracy" in response to someone asking why staff didn't check to see if the player base would want the change first is pretty callous.

[Fredd]

I know that staff have pretty much never been good at communicating but "this isn't a democracy" in response to someone asking why staff didn't check to see if the player base would want the change first is pretty callous.

This SHOULD have been phased in. with the current plots leading into what they want season 1 to do. This would have given us months to adjust and get used to the storyline ending.  The current way this is handle has me worried, and I'm not the only one...

9 people on at noon on wednessday might not SOUND bad. But it really is. It's less then half what I'm used to seeing. Judging from the messages I've been getting, people are just.. Moving on. Like their pc's are dead, and it's time to find a new game.

That being said. Thank all of you for reaching out to me (those of you still checking the boards) The support has been beautiful, and I love you all.

[frankjacoby]

Would you consider running some skeletal version of the game during the downtime, to give player something to do so they don't lose interest?

This is one of the things that irks players, IMO.

We would want to have a chance to play outside of staff interference/control, something to have fun with, that's all, as opposed to nothing.

Again, just IMO.

[Rogerthat]

I know that staff have pretty much never been good at communicating but "this isn't a democracy" in response to someone asking why staff didn't check to see if the player base would want the change first is pretty callous.

It's a constant thing though, Kaverick. I don't think it's wrong for the player base to be upset that staff did not ask of our opinions. WE as PLAYERS are the reason this game continues to go on, so not asking the 50 players or what not of their opinion is poor in my eyes. I would understand if it was a bigger player base but it is just not. I don't think it is cruel or insensitive that people are saying that. It's how they feel, it's a game that hasn't changed drastically in years and now it is without input from the players that keep it going is highly ridiculous. Specially with such a low player base, I can't say that enough. YOU also say staff haven't been good at communicating, that is false. They have tried and done well in some areas and other areas have failed. It happens, we are humans of course. I don't see it as a problem for us as players to ask that of the staff who are also players why they don't ask for input on major changes on a dying game. Just my two cents.