Armageddon General Discussion Board

Hey,
I was thinking just a moment ago about what I like and what I dislike about arm, and the like list was growing a lot bigger then the dislike, in fact, the dislike was almost nothing except for a couple things that just bother me.

What I dislike about it is the updating on Saturday.. Because, I don't get to play, but.. there is an upside to that also, there is also a bonus to that one, in fact, a lot of likes to that. And that is just about the only thing, except the fact that we need a bigger player-field.

Vote, and then -please- post what you dislike about arm, I am curious to know, and I bet others would want to know also.

I guess the only thing I could dislike is the amount of players, though that is usually more of something that we are responsible for.  Advertising and voting and what not.  I have been around playing RL for about 6 months now and have found nothing that I dislike so far, and I still know so little about the game world that it is just staggering.  Increase the amount of players and things become much more intensive.  That's all I could really hope for to make things better.

The biggest problem I have with Arm is something that more or less inveitably comes along with one of it's best sides -

It's high level of RP and high RP demands sometimes bring along with them an attitude of "RP-Police", and sometimes a quiet intolerance towrds newbies and peopple who are new to RP intensive MUDs.

That being said, It's far less prominent than I thought it would be at first, and most people who do it don't do it out of any bad intention, I'd say, and don't mind standing corrected.

Another, much smaller problem I have, are the maps. I don't know why, but most of the zones just seem rather... dull, or repetative, to me. Disturbed me much more in the past because it was different than MUDs I used to play, but I'm much more comfortable with it now that I'm used to it.

Getting knocked out using the way.  Why would ANYONE want to sit there for 30 minutes after being knocked out???  So shoot me.......It's my fault for pushing the envelope, but I'd say that 20-30 minutes is highly excessive.  I know things get better, but regardless......I think it takes away from the game...the RP and peoples play time.

mine are the usuals:

Want more people. (I've brought two people into the game so far. Don't look at me!)

Live update. (If there's a time i want to MUD with bleary eyes it's saturday day!)

I'd only have to say get more people...

We can fix that by holding an: Invite a friend day...

More people would always be nice, but we do have a very healthy playerbase for an RPI.  We just arent all crammed into one tavern drinking ale and mudsexing all day.

My biggest problem is how it sometimes seems so empty outside and how in some zones you can wander for RL hours without seeing a single NPC.  More variety in the monsters outside the gates, including smaller monsters to flesh out the ecosystem, would be nice.  I can of course always submit them...bah wait till finals are over.

Quote from: "SpyGuy"More people would always be nice, but we do have a very healthy playerbase for an RPI.  We just arent all crammed into one tavern drinking ale and mudsexing all day.

My biggest problem is how it sometimes seems so empty outside and how in some zones you can wander for RL hours without seeing a single NPC.  More variety in the monsters outside the gates, including smaller monsters to flesh out the ecosystem, would be nice.  I can of course always submit them...bah wait till finals are over.

I disagree...If we had more PCs, there'd be more people wandering outside that you could meet while you are out there. The NPCs we have are alright now, not too much not too little. Maybe they could put out some more Nomadic NPCs in the desert.

I should have clarified.  I meant NPCs in the broadest sense, including monsters, little pink bunnies and talking rocks.  More variety and population in the PC world (as opposed to virtual) is what I meant.  Even small things that are more or less worthless to skin can add to the environment.

I would have to agree about the zero stun waiting period, either from using the way, or when you got the wrong way and some NPC saps you.  I think 5-10 minutes is more than enough time to "punish" you for being stupid, and more than enough time for someone to take advantage of you.  Sometimes you don't have 30-40 minutes to wait before you can log off.

Then there is the karma system, which wouldn't bother me as long as I had maxed out Karma  :D But I understand why it is in place, and I guess I can be thankful for the Karma that I do have, I just would like to not have to special app for all of those elementalists.  I also think players who play during off peak hours tend to get less Karma.  But overall, I think the system is fine, (I just don't like it when it applies to me.)

I don't like how NPCs can see you in the middle of a sandstorm and shoot arrows at you, when you can't see, and it give you the message that it is too windy to use your bow,  (but not too windy for the NPC)

oh one more thing, I don't like dying... :evil:

Quote from: "ashjpd"
Vote, and then -please- post what you dislike about arm, I am curious to know, and I bet others would want to know also.

I wonder if anyone will post what they really hate or if it'll be all subjects most of us agree with such as we need more players, and we want to play on saturday. :roll:

We -can- play on Saturday.  Just not until after 7pm CST.   :wink:

That said, my main beefs are as follows:

1.  Players who don't seem to be able to see beyond the code.
Thankfully this is not a huge deal, but I've seen alot of discussion here that leads me to believe many players simply don't understand how powerful decent roleplay is at opening up their PC's horizons....regardless of hard-coded benefits or restrictions.

A PC in Arm can literally be or become anything the Player could imagine, so long as the progression is handled with dedication and brilliance...and attention to IC detail.  It is really that simple.  Actually doing this...may seem rather difficult, but it can be done.  I know from personal experience.

2.  Older, more experienced players who don't seem willing to help out the new folks by actually interacting with them on a regular basis.

I don't know about you other folks, but for me, it was the examples of great roleplay that I had as a newb that helped me to 'get' ArmageddonMud and become a better player.  If great roleplayers had refused to have much to do with my characters because I was a 'clueless newbie', I probably would not have improved....or if I had, I may not have stayed loyal to the mud all these years.

So for better or worse, thanks to interaction with many of Arm's excellent roleplayers, I remain addicted to this virtual crack-rock and undoubtedly will remain so until the Dragon returns and destroys Zalanthas in wrath and flame.   :twisted:

3.  And lastly, I have a problem with people who aren't willing to take responsibility for their lives.  This goes WAY beyond ArmageddonMud.  This seems to be an epidemic in Western culture...that people want the freedom to do as they will, but don't wanna pay the tab when it comes due.  In Arm, that boils down to people who follow the code of good roleplay only so long as it is beneficial to their whims and the good fortune of their characters.  It also involves those players who cry 'abuse!' when the actions of another PC, or staff, run contrary to what's 'good' for their own whim and their own PC's life, or their own individual sense of what is 'fair' gets violated.  I'm sorry, but I've seen WAY too many people cry foul when things go against their PC and their desires, then turn around and do the EXACT SAME SHIT to someone else...or reverse in order of events...fuck someone over (perfectly ICly in the gameworld), then cry 'Abuse!' when it happens to their own pc.  That shit just pisses me the hell off!   :evil:   And please don't think I'm singling out players here.  I think these rules and situations apply to anyone involved with ArmageddonMud.  :twisted:

I guess that's it for me.

I meant to add another option to the poll, but I accidently forgot to push the add the option thing, anyways, we can play on Saturday's yes, but I think for most people, like myself, Saturday is a day that we would like to play the WHOLE entire day, I think it would be to much to ask, but maybe switching the day the staff members do the weekly update? Has it always been on Saturday? I think that Saturday is also the day that most gamers play, since it is the weekend and all, so, to my beliefs, it would bring more players to play. Then again, it is the best day of the week to do it, so never mind.

And the ledgend has spoken


I agree intirely with Naatok, and I'd like to confess that I was one of those people that didn't ever interact with n00bs because they didn't know what they were doing, but now I've changed, I take what RP I can get hoping to eventually come across the best RPer ever in the game. Boy that would be fun to RP with one of them.

Quote from: "ashjpd"I meant to add another option to the poll, but I accidently forgot to push the add the option thing, anyways, we can play on Saturday's yes, but I think for most people, like myself, Saturday is a day that we would like to play the WHOLE entire day, I think it would be to much to ask, but maybe switching the day the staff members do the weekly update? Has it always been on Saturday? I think that Saturday is also the day that most gamers play, since it is the weekend and all, so, to my beliefs, it would bring more players to play. Then again, it is the best day of the week to do it, so never mind.

Think of it this way: There are other games you can play on saturday, there's this GDB, and, you can write/think up ideas that would improve arm.

When there's something I don't like, I'lll put it down in my notes. then, come saturday, I can start improving on it.

I tend to belive that a lot of people do around the house work on saturdays as well. I know I do.

Spending a fistful of coins on a mug of ale, taking one drink, and then being forced to shell out another fistfull of coins for a mug of ale, only to take one drink and then have to shell out another fistful of coins for ONE FUCKING DRINK OF ALE.

I can buy a forty oz at the store downt he street for 2$, a mug of beer at the bar or a six pack from the grocer AND I can drink the shit all day long.

The things I don't like I'd classify as annoyances, and they are few compared to the things I really admire about Arm, its immortals, and its players.

What I hate above everything and everyone:
Attempting to come up with ideas and send them in to the right person :)

Alcohol hits a character immediately, which can be annoying when trying to play out a scene.

I'd prefer if alcohol took one or a couple of RL minutes to 'get through the character's system', along with maybe an echo beforehand (Your last drink really didn't settle well, and you're starting to feel ill, etc.).

A super-minor point, but I really can't come up with many major complaints.

My only dislikes are:

1) As Naatok said, there are some people who cry abuse every time something happens that isn't -good- for their character.

2) People who are striving to make changes to Arm (rp and documentation) that are intended for realism...there is a such thing as too much realism, that's when it ceases to be fantasy, which is part of the reason I don't like some of the other RPIs. So much realism they aren't fun to play anymore.

3) The severe lack of criminal groups in the game, such as raiders and the like...I'd much rather have fear of getting jumped by pc raiders while outside the walls than NPC beasts. I think the biggest contributer to the lack of these is the fact that one is not allowed to build them OOC with others first.
In real life, any famous group of criminals had a history together before they were labelled as criminals or turned against the law. I understand that there shouldn't be perfect loyalty with all of them and that is the reasoning for not allowing it...but who's to say everyone is going to be?

By that same token one could say that no families should be recruited for ooc either, because whose to say there is for certain perfect loyalty amongst the members of the family either?

I think that people should be allowed to build criminal groups OOCly, most of them just end up getting hunted down and wiped out by...pretty much every other clan in the game anway, why not give them a better chance at lasting longer than a couple of encounters before they are wiped off the face of Zalanthas?


Those are my only real dislikes about Arm, I -love- everything else about it for the most part.

My list:

Random stat rolls - I hate that I can invest time into writing up a character and covering every detail, just to find out my ranger can't use a bow because of random stat rolls.

NPC player protectors - I don't like that special application characters are offered god-like NPC guards that are immune to corruption of any kind and set with scripts that provide them with reaction times above and beyond anything a PC could ever have. They want a guard? Make them hire a PC like the rest of us.

All or nothing skinning - It kind of bugs me when someone can't get a few scraps of hide, a chunk of bone or a handful of raw meat when skinning a creature. There should be at least a random bare minimal you can get.

Short description limit - Why not make it 38 or 40? I hate having the perfect short description, only to find its one letter over the limit.

Unarmed code - I just don't like the massive negatives that come with it, or the superior to bludgeoning weapons stun damage it does.

Mounted combat - Should happen more often but doesn't, because its more or less suicidal unless you severely out class the other guy in combat skills.

Clans - Most of the clans in-game cater to people who want to play politics or be on the upper crust. What about those of us who want to play some gritty commoner with commoner issues?

Greater access to the games item database - Much of the games items aren't available unless someone kills an NPC to get them in-game, because NPC merchants have set stock items and PC merchants peddle the same stuff over and over again. Let's see NPCs spawning some random items in shops after weekly down time - doesn't have to be expensive and generic bad-ass stuff, just some more beat up leathers and common clothes, obsidian knives and bone maces, let people dress more unique.

The Way - it has far too much power in-game in an OOC and IC context. We would have a lot more action if people had to give reports in person, rather then over the way, or if you had to hire a messenger to pass information along to someone in another town. Imagine the spy vs spy stuff that could happen? It'd be great.

The lack of crime - it is incredibly difficult to play a long-term and successful criminal in Armageddon. I want to see more spice smugglers, more raiders, more black markets, more extortion, more mafia-style groups forming and warring with each other. Right now there are severe coded road blocks to this. The criminal code could do to be more lax to represent the severe corruption among the centers of civilization, as well as foster more criminal elements then pickpockets and chair-stealing burglars.

Red Storm - I like Red Storm and its theme, but I don't like the situation it seems to be in. It needs more stuff, something to draw at least a small but consistent player base. Crafting supplies and a decent chance for criminals (not raiders, but thieves and the like) would go a long way in making it more attractive to players.

Global politics - I want to see more strife between global factions, such as Tuluk and Allanak. There isn't a lot of that happening that everyone can appreciate, like trade wars and sabotage and generally offensive terrorism, like you would expect between two opposing city-states. The fact Allanak didn't engage in some revenge of biblical proportions for the Academy incident and the general humiliation of defeat doesn't strike me as making a whole lot of sense. Shouldn't these nobles be spending LESS time meddling in commoners lives and MORE time opening various cans of whup-ass and whup-ass substitutes on their kings enemies?

That's it for now.

Quote from: "Callisto"Red Storm - I like Red Storm and its theme, but I don't like the situation it seems to be in. It needs more stuff, something to draw at least a small but consistent player base. Crafting supplies and a decent chance for criminals (not raiders, but thieves and the like) would go a long way in making it more attractive to players.

Global politics - I want to see more strife between global factions, such as Tuluk and Allanak. There isn't a lot of that happening that everyone can appreciate, like trade wars and sabotage and generally offensive terrorism, like you would expect between two opposing city-states. The fact Allanak didn't engage in some revenge of biblical proportions for the Academy incident and the general humiliation of defeat doesn't strike me as making a whole lot of sense. Shouldn't these nobles be spending LESS time meddling in commoners lives and MORE time opening various cans of whup-ass and whup-ass substitutes on their kings enemies?

The words out of my mouth you took.

The only things I'll add is that I do not like having nobility spread out between the two city states.  I'd rather have one city-state's nobility be closed and the other's expanded to 4 open houses.  When I played my longest-lived noble Tuluk was a hole in the ground (great for hunters) and Allanak had Fale, Oash, Tor and Borsail all open and very active.  Now, instead, those clans are semi-active with little to no intrigue going on between them from where I sit.

I'd like to see the role of Nenyuk automated and not reliant on some poor PC.

The jobs situation is pretty sad with most clans either having to go with low PC numbers or hire anyone they can due to the number of clans with perpetually open positions.  I don't mean to sound like a broken record but the proliferation of paid positions has not been proportionate with the increase in the playerbase.  The supply of jobs should not far outweigh the demand, which it does.

ARM is great.  There are things that could be improved here and there but overall eveything works, and the game is very playable.  

If there is one thing I really hate it's this: Shops closing at night.  Grr!

I really don't see the point.  Simulating the inconvenience of real life?  How does making me wait 30 min to buy a backpack enhance the game to any extent?  It's just wasting my time.

And don't tell me it's more realistic.  It would be realistic if the shopkeeper npc went home or something, but they just sit there.  The wandering merchant npcs still wander.  He's standing there, in the bazzar, nothing better to do apparently, I got money, he's got the backpack, I want to buy the backpack, he presumably wants to sell the backpack, what's stopping him from giving me my damn backpack?  

"Sorry, I'm closed, come back at dawn".  

Bah!

Quote from: "Callisto"My list:


Red Storm - I like Red Storm and its theme, but I don't like the situation it seems to be in. It needs more stuff, something to draw at least a small but consistent player base. Crafting supplies and a decent chance for criminals (not raiders, but thieves and the like) would go a long way in making it more attractive to players.

Global politics - I want to see more strife between global factions, such as Tuluk and Allanak. There isn't a lot of that happening that everyone can appreciate, like trade wars and sabotage and generally offensive terrorism, like you would expect between two opposing city-states. The fact Allanak didn't engage in some revenge of biblical proportions for the Academy incident and the general humiliation of defeat doesn't strike me as making a whole lot of sense. Shouldn't these nobles be spending LESS time meddling in commoners lives and MORE time opening various cans of whup-ass and whup-ass substitutes on their kings enemies?

Making spice grubbing a more profitable venture (something to compare with 'naks stone carving/'sid mining and Tuluk's wood industry) might go a long way to making Storm more feasible for independents.

Global politics...I'm new so haven't seen much of this.  But now that you bring it to my attention, seems like a really good idea for certain roles to be involved with.

Some good points.

I pretty much agree with everything that Callisto just wrote.. Especially the random stats and the short description limit..

What I hate:
Combat system (you have to ~hit~ to get better, but if you spar a really good fighter, There is no ~hitting~. Which means no getting better)

Maybe42or54>

It's the other way around.  You gain skill by failing.  That means you get better when you get hit and when you miss.  Fighting a skilled fighter is better than fighting a pushover.

Noble Houses
I don't really see the point in having so many different noble houses when their differences are nominal and their spread out nature makes them chronically underpopulated.  I'd rather have clans that are different from each other, have obvious tasks and goals for their members, and create conflict that is both obvious and accessible.  This would also be possible with major revamping of the noble houses, but right now they just can't support anything that I consider meaningful.

Quote from: "Malken"I pretty much agree with everything that Callisto just wrote.. Especially the random stats and the short description limit..

Longer sdescs would be extremely annoying. Its like when you get that double cloak/facewrap sdesc, or a couple ppl do in your group and your trying to ride somewhere. Just adds a lot of spam. And you know some people will abuse it, making extremely long ones.

What I don't like:
The mass combat system. (or its lack thereof)

I don't like how some people think that every room in the city is full of VNPC's willing to turn you in every hour of every day.

The coded economy and the coded merchant clans. It'd be nice if there was some kind of economic system such that the argument 'You shouldn't sell so many of high price item A every week' would never come up. The merchant houses are pretty boring in my opinion. Now if they were all destroyed or one was and a bunch of pc run groups tried to fill the void, now that'd be interesting.

The noble houses I've seen are pretty dull as well. I think if you closed down all the noble houses, they wouldn't be missed by me anyway.

Lack of criminal PC's. I agree with Jhunter's post about that.

Karma. Its a good idea in theory. But so is communism.

Lack of conflict. How can I say this after recent events? Well mostly it seemed the conflict was just a very few very large events. There wasn't a long period of time where mantis scoured the entire north road, making travel impossible.  It also seems the merchant houses and others have this whole 'let us join together to face our common enemy' mentality that I hope goes away quick.

Quote1. Players who don't seem to be able to see beyond the code.
Thankfully this is not a huge deal, but I've seen alot of discussion here that leads me to believe many players simply don't understand how powerful decent roleplay is at opening up their PC's horizons....regardless of hard-coded benefits or restrictions.

I'll believe that when a merchant becomes a sergeant in the Byn.[/u][/url]

Quote from: "Dirr"I'll believe that when a merchant becomes a sergeant in the Byn.[/u][/url]

That will be my project in the future then, everything is possible.
There aint much I would like to add that I dislike about arm except for burglars, they are needed, but me as the player hates them in general. :wink:

Oh, also when the game crashes, like it just did. :roll:

Quote from: "Dirr"I'll believe that when a merchant becomes a sergeant in the Byn.

Players don't normally appoint sergeants. Tlaloc does.

What I don't like about the game are such minor things that they don't really warrant a vote, so I will not. I'm sure someone has voted both options without writing a comment, so it evens out. :)

  What I don't like is not about the game but about other things. One was already mentioned by someone earlier: The RP police.

  The other is this fairly recent, but frequent, complaint coming from a couple of people that some (or even all) Noble Houses should be closed. Or Merchant Houses, for that matter.
  I cannot speak for others, but I find it personally discouraging to read on these boards how Tuluk and especially Tuluki nobility being open to players is ruining the game. I have spent so many hours playing this character over the last ten months and I know others have worked very hard to make things work, the staff especially.

  Live and let live. People like different things, please, if you don't like something, play somewhere else. Let those, who enjoy the parts of the game you don't, have their fun instead of yelling 'Carthage must be destroyed' at every opportunity.

If you like the way things are now, I understand that.  But I don't think that should preclude the possibility of trying out something that could be even better.

QuotePlayers don't normally appoint sergeants. Tlaloc does.

I realize this.

Quote from: "Dirr"

QuotePlayers don't normally appoint sergeants. Tlaloc does.

I realize this.

Then why would you make that comment to a post about players not seeing behind the code?

Quote from: "ashjpd"Vote, and then -please- post what you dislike about arm, I am curious to know, and I bet others would want to know also.

* Lack of ANSI colour (you can turn if off if you like monochrome, you know)
* Command delay which mimics a laggy connection
* Habitual disappearance of emails to and from the imms
* Slow reply speed to emails
* Saturday downtime
* Low playerbase (outside peak hours) and the resulting difficulty in finding a merchant, a Nenuyki agent, etc.
* No coded ability to leave messages which sometimes creates serious unrealistic communication problems between PCs
* Losing your link will often get your character killed or robbed
* Black-and-white criminal code
* The alleged unfairness, favoritism and bias that arises from the Karma system
* Some more or less common thoughts within the playerbase:

- Harshness means death
- Emoting means RP, and vice versa
- Stop whining
- Realism precedes playability
- Secrets are the core of the game, and when you find them out, the game is not the same anymore
* The web site looks like something straight from 1993 and probably doesn't help to bring new players
* GDB pollution where people cannot understand that comments like

"me too",
"I'm so excited",
"(beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep)",
"Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock..."
"I'm pumped"
[/list]... just waste everyone's time when they are not posted to the Idle OOC Chatter section.[/list]Those were the first things that I could think of.

Quote from: "Zore"- Stop whining

The irony is so blatant it hurts.

And as for colour, one of my pet hates about other muds is when you can't actually read certain words because they're so pink.

X-D is unable to stop himself....

Quote* Lack of ANSI colour (you can turn if off if you like monochrome, you know)

The lack of ansi color is to help get the correct feel, Zalanthas is not a bright happy place.

Quote* Command delay which mimics a laggy connection

First, not all commands have delay, second, the delay is in place on some commands for a reason, First, it puts everybody on an even footing reguardless of connection speed, and second, it adds strategy to the game.

Quote* Black-and-white criminal code

That is not armageddon, that is Zalanthas.

Quote* The alleged unfairness, favoritism and bias that arises from the Karma system

I don't see it.

Quote* Some more or less common thoughts within the playerbase:

- Harshness means death
- Emoting means RP, and vice versa
- Stop whining
- Realism precedes playability
- Secrets are the core of the game, and when you find them out, the game is not the same anymore

Hhhmm, mostly right, I personaly think death is pretty harsh.

And yes, many people think emoting=RP even though it has been stated otherwise many times over

Playability precedes realism, I personally don't know anybody that feels otherwise.

And reword the last and it would be correct...The secrets of the game are much more fun to find out IC, finding them out ooc takes away from your enjoyment.

Quote* The web site looks like something straight from 1993 and probably doesn't help to bring new players

Yes it does, it helps to bring players who are serious, it is not fancy with cute pictures and music, it is a utility not entertainment itself.

The only thing I don't like about the game currently is the closed race options.

QuoteThe lack of ansi color is to help get the correct feel, Zalanthas is not a bright happy place.

ANSI colour is not for happiness, but to help people distinct different elements. People with the skill can program their clients, but everyone else is just left out.

QuoteFirst, not all commands have delay, second, the delay is in place on some commands for a reason, First, it puts everybody on an even footing reguardless of connection speed, and second, it adds strategy to the game.

Read my point again. The delay is poorly implemented. There should be a command delay. It shouldn't be so that it just appears like your connection is lagging.

Quote

Quote* Black-and-white criminal code

That is not armageddon, that is Zalanthas.

No, that is Armageddon. The game in question. The code in question.

QuoteHhhmm, mostly right, I personaly think death is pretty harsh.

That wasn't my point. Harshness doesn't mean death. Death is the most uninventive way to create harshness.

QuotePlayability precedes realism, I personally don't know anybody that feels otherwise.

How about shops' closing times? Adds no RP opportunities and just makes sure that those who don't OOCly have so much time in their hands have more difficulties buying things.

QuoteAnd reword the last and it would be correct...The secrets of the game are much more fun to find out IC, finding them out ooc takes away from your enjoyment.

That's the official tagline. Your mileage may vary.

Quote

Quote* The web site looks like something straight from 1993 and probably doesn't help to bring new players

Yes it does, it helps to bring players who are serious, it is not fancy with cute pictures and music, it is a utility not entertainment itself.

Gee, maybe we should delete the newbie documentation too, to only bring serious players?

It isn't like we would want to make Arm look like a modern, friendly MUD game.

Quote from: "Spoon"And as for colour, one of my pet hates about other muds is when you can't actually read certain words because they're so pink.

The ANSI color standard contains 8 normal and 8 highlighted colours, and codes for bold, underline, blinking and reverse video.

With a good client you can set these colours to be what you want, or turn them all off if you like your Arm harsh. But see, we don't have options at all.

Quote from: "Spoon"

Quote from: "Zore"- Stop whining

The irony is so blatant it hurts.

I will have to agree on that one.

As far as other things...

Quote from: "Zore"

QuoteFirst, not all commands have delay, second, the delay is in place on some commands for a reason, First, it puts everybody on an even footing reguardless of connection speed, and second, it adds strategy to the game.

Read my point again. The delay is poorly implemented. There should be a command delay. It shouldn't be so that it just appears like your connection is lagging.

It is poorly implemented?  Saying a thing doesn't make it so.  Tell us why you think it is poorly implemented.

Quote from: "Zore"

Quote

Quote* Black-and-white criminal code

That is not armageddon, that is Zalanthas.

No, that is Armageddon. The game in question. The code in question.

Uh, Zore, he was saying that on Zalanthas, things are kinda black and white as far as law-enforcement goes, so the crim-code is just fine.

Quote from: "Zore"

QuotePlayability precedes realism, I personally don't know anybody that feels otherwise.

How about shops' closing times? Adds no RP opportunities and just makes sure that those who don't OOCly have so much time in their hands have more difficulties buying things.

Hey, without realism, the game wouldn't be what it is.  Some playability has to be sacrificed to realism and vice-versa.

Quote from: "Zore"

QuoteAnd reword the last and it would be correct...The secrets of the game are much more fun to find out IC, finding them out ooc takes away from your enjoyment.

That's the official tagline. Your mileage may vary.

What point is there in watching a movie when you already know the end?

Quote from: "Zore"

Quote

Quote* The web site looks like something straight from 1993 and probably doesn't help to bring new players

Yes it does, it helps to bring players who are serious, it is not fancy with cute pictures and music, it is a utility not entertainment itself.

Gee, maybe we should delete the newbie documentation too, to only bring serious players?

There's a difference between bringing serious players only and not bringing anyone.  Suggesting something that is obviously an over-reactive bit of tripe will never endear someone to your point of view.

Quote from: "spawnloser"

Quote from: "Spoon"

Quote from: "Zore"- Stop whining

The irony is so blatant it hurts.

I will have to agree on that one.

It's not ironic at all. He is saying he doesn't like the fact that when anyone disagrees with something about the mud they are shouted down with calls of "whiner'. At leasts that's my interpretation of it. And ironically he is right. Someone ASKED him what hated, and when he answers, you all label him a whiner? He didn't just post it out of the blue, someone asked.

Did Spoon or I say he was a whiner?  I don't believe that I did.  I was just saying that the irony amused me, considering this thread is all about whining about what you think isn't right about the mud...as if it might change something.

Quote from: "spawnloser"Did Spoon or I say he was a whiner?  I don't believe that I did.  I was just saying that the irony amused me, considering this thread is all about whining about what you think isn't right about the mud...as if it might change something.

If its so pointless, why are you posting on it?

I'm only discussing what others have posted.

Quote from: "spawnloser"It is poorly implemented?  Saying a thing doesn't make it so.  Tell us why you think it is poorly implemented.

I said, twice. It feels like a laggy connection. I've been to muds where they have solved the movement lag problem with consecutive messages like "You start moving southwards", that's one way of solving them.

And moreover, combat lag seriously delays emotes and such, and since emotes often are not transmitted to the mud, it makes emoting during combat a real pain. Apparently all commands are stacked to the delay queue, even those that should have zero delay.

QuoteUh, Zore, he was saying that on Zalanthas, things are kinda black and white as far as law-enforcement goes, so the crim-code is just fine.

Things are not black-and-white on Zalanthas. There are different levels of crime. There are different odds at getting caught. These depend on factors like time, place, skill, the type of crime and such. The length of detention is absurdly small, but I don't have serious problems with that since it's a playability issue.

If the code actually does more than just roll the dice to see if every single soldier in the city comes after you, it does a good job in hiding it.

Quote

Quote from: "Zore"How about shops' closing times? Adds no RP opportunities and just makes sure that those who don't OOCly have so much time in their hands have more difficulties buying things.

Hey, without realism, the game wouldn't be what it is.  Some playability has to be sacrificed to realism and vice-versa.

Yes, realism is good, as long as it helps to provide a good environment for RP. And often it does. In the shop case, it doesn't.

Quote[Secrets]
What point is there in watching a movie when you already know the end?

There is no end to Armageddon or Zalanthas. Armageddon isn't a movie.

Quote[The web page and its look]
There's a difference between bringing serious players only and not bringing anyone.  Suggesting something that is obviously an over-reactive bit of tripe will never endear someone to your point of view.

Hey, all I'm saying that having a more modern web pages, like most MUDs have, wouldn't hurt. I'd hate to think the 1993 layout is there to entice a certain type of player.

Quote from: "spawnloser"I'm only discussing what others have posted.

So you don't have anything that you yourself dislike about Arm? What a good boy. Or you don't want to post it because its easier to just tear down someone else's post then express something of your own? Or you think its pointless, so pointless that you feel  the need to discuss someone elses post point by point?

Quote from: "Dead Newbie"

Quote from: "spawnloser"I'm only discussing what others have posted.

So you don't have anything that you yourself dislike about Arm? What a good boy. Or you don't want to post it because its easier to just tear down someone else's post then express something of your own? Or you think its pointless, so pointless that you feel  the need to discuss someone elses post point by point?

What's with all the hostility?

I don't feel like discussing what I dislike, as it is something that will not change if I discuss it.  I'm discussing what others have mentioned as I like to discuss things.

Now, kindly bring your hostile ass elsewhere.

QuoteZore wrote:
- Stop whining

Notice I made no mention on my post because Zore...and Dead newbie are correct on that one.


Onward

QuoteRead my point again. The delay is poorly implemented. There should be a command delay. It shouldn't be so that it just appears like your connection is lagging.

I don't understand what you mean by poorly implemented, it works perfectly, and always has. Or maybe you want a ticker or something on your prompt saying that you are under command delay. That is a point you left out, people who play this game wish to be immersed, and will often ask that things that are jarring be removed, I would, if such a thing were put in. But another reason to not have it SPECIALY not for new players is that it is something that makes the player focus even more on code, why, cause there it is, staring you in the face. The delays make sense in thier implementation, from move delay to skill delay to casting and crafting delay, Only thing I've always thought is that the delays should be warned about on the main web page.

QuoteI've been to muds where they have solved the movement lag problem with consecutive messages like "You start moving southwards", that's one way of solving them.

The one thing I truly despise about SoI...an otherwise good mud.

Quote* Black-and-white criminal code  
That is not armageddon, that is Zalanthas.
No, that is Armageddon. The game in question. The code in question.

No, the crim code in question works the way it does because of the world it is for, if it was a different world the crim code would be different. Zalanthian law -IS- black and white.

QuoteThat wasn't my point. Harshness doesn't mean death. Death is the most uninventive way to create harshness.

No, the end result of harshness should be death, else there is no threat and no harshness.

QuoteHow about shops' closing times? Adds no RP opportunities and just makes sure that those who don't OOCly have so much time in their hands have more difficulties buying things

If you are going to quote something that is realistic and has a miner affect
on playability then I shall do the same but the opposit, How about the fact that your char Never has to sleep, no matter how long he/she remains awake, a Large sacrifice of realism for playability, Or that he will never have a bowel movement unless you rp one?

QuoteHey, all I'm saying that having a more modern web pages, like most MUDs have, wouldn't hurt. I'd hate to think the 1993 layout is there to entice a certain type of player.

Why would you hate that? We -do- only want to attract certain types of players, I for one hope that the "1993 layout" Is there for that reason, as well, as keeping the web page a simple tool.

Quote from: "Dead Newbie"It's not ironic at all.

Whining about whining and whining about being labled a whiner is about as ironic as baring your arse to the moon.

So yes. Yes it is.

Quote from: "spawnloser"

Quote from: "Dead Newbie"

Quote from: "spawnloser"I'm only discussing what others have posted.

So you don't have anything that you yourself dislike about Arm? What a good boy. Or you don't want to post it because its easier to just tear down someone else's post then express something of your own? Or you think its pointless, so pointless that you feel  the need to discuss someone elses post point by point?

What's with all the hostility?

I don't feel like discussing what I dislike, as it is something that will not change if I discuss it.  I'm discussing what others have mentioned as I like to discuss things.

Now, kindly bring your hostile ass elsewhere.

Quit whining.

Anyway, I want to hear what you dislike about the mud. Since you seem to think what everyone else thinks about it useless whining. That's what -I- want to discuss. Maybe when you imply that everyone's post was whining and useless, you set the tone.

You just said you don't like discussing what you dislike because it is something that will not change...so why are you discussing it in this thread??? Because you like to discuss things? You are contradicting yourself.

One of the few real things I don't like about Armageddon is the players who posts on this board -all- the time.. Even tho I have been playing this game for over 10 years now, too many people here seems to think that this mud belongs to them and that only their own and their little gang's opinions matters.. Quick to make the new players feel like they aren't welcomed and make them feel like idiots, players who feel like they must post in every threads that exists and reply the same old thing that has been said just a few posts earlier makes me only post here once in a blue moon.

I really wish Sanvean would give the TWIT flag to some of the regulars, here..

Dead Newbie, I find your logic...unfollowable.

Seriously.

I said I am not going to discuss what I dislike.  I never said that everyone was whining.  I am discussing what other people have brought up, because they brought it up, so discussing it is an exercise in information.  I like such things, for the information only.  Where is this contradiction you speak of.  You don't know what my problems with the game are, but I will tell you this...my problems can NOT be solved by talking to players and players will get nothing out of hearing about my probelms.  My problems with the game are for me and staff to know about, and noone else.  Discussing other issues of others, however...why does liking to talk to bring out further explanation so that a thought is more fully fleshed out mean that I am contradicting myself?

Seriously, DN, this arguement that you have started is a derailment from the topic of the thread.  Let it drop.  I, and everyone else, am trying to discuss something here.  If you can't discuss it, instead of making personal attacks on your truly, please, just go away.

Quote from: "spawnloser"about whining about what you think isn't right about the mud...

Huh? Since when is giving an answer to a question considered whining?

Quote from: "spawnloser"
Seriously, DN, this arguement that you have started is a derailment from the topic of the thread.  Let it drop.  I, and everyone else, am trying to discuss something here.  If you can't discuss it, instead of making personal attacks on your truly, please, just go away.

So if I don't agree with you I should go away. Fat chance. I think its lame to refuse to say what you personally don't like about the mud but then feel free to criticize everyone elses posts.  I guess I will list another thing or two I don't like about this place.

I don't like players who are always willing to criticize but never willing to submit their own ideas for criticism.

I don't like players who seem to be trying to win brownie points by claiming that everyone who has an issue with Arm is a 'whiner' and the immortals who feed this behavior.

I don't like how when someone critiques someone else everything is fine, but when they get critiqued or their idea does, then suddenly the criticizer should 'go away'.

I don't like players who post on the board who qualify their posts trying to make it seem as if 'everyone' is on their side.

Quote from: "X-D"I don't understand what you mean by poorly implemented, it works perfectly, and always has. Or maybe you want a ticker or something on your prompt saying that you are under command delay.

Yes, the point is that you should know exactly when it's a command delay and when it's a network delay, and commands that are not delayed (like emotes) should not be delayed. The current code just stacks everything in a pile, outputs nothing informative and picks the commands one by one.

QuoteThat is a point you left out, people who play this game wish to be immersed, and will often ask that things that are jarring be removed, I would, if such a thing were put in.

A good command delay interferes with immersion? Colour that can be turned off interferes with immersion? Shops open all the time interferes with immersion?

Exactly what do you mean?

QuoteBut another reason to not have it SPECIALY not for new players is that it is something that makes the player focus even more on code, why, cause there it is, staring you in the face. The delays make sense in thier implementation, from move delay to skill delay to casting and crafting delay, Only thing I've always thought is that the delays should be warned about on the main web page.

The delays make it harder to emote during combat because they are coded poorly. They make emoting harder. They slow the game beyond what's necessary for a realistic command delay.

Because of the poorly implemented command delay, the limitations of the code hit you straight in the face.

QuoteNo, the crim code in question works the way it does because of the world it is for, if it was a different world the crim code would be different. Zalanthian law -IS- black and white.

I already described the defects of the crime code in a previous message:

QuoteThings are not black-and-white on Zalanthas. There are different levels of crime. There are different odds at getting caught. These depend on factors like time, place, skill, the type of crime and such. The length of detention is absurdly small, but I don't have serious problems with that since it's a playability issue.

If the code actually does more than just roll the dice to see if every single soldier in the city comes after you, it does a good job in hiding it.

QuoteNo, the end result of harshness should be death, else there is no threat and no harshness.

There is other threat besides death. This is a point many players ignore. Death effectively ends all RP on the victim's side. Other forms of threat do not.

QuoteIf you are going to quote something that is realistic and has a miner affect on playability - -

Yes, that was an example of a situation where strive for realism decreased playability. Because someone said people do not put realism before playability, I provided this counter-example.

Quote- - Or that he will never have a bowel movement unless you rp one?

Yes, that is putting playability before realism. Which is how it should be.

Quote

QuoteHey, all I'm saying that having a more modern web pages, like most MUDs have, wouldn't hurt. I'd hate to think the 1993 layout is there to entice a certain type of player.

Why would you hate that? We -do- only want to attract certain types of players, I for one hope that the "1993 layout" Is there for that reason, as well, as keeping the web page a simple tool.

You honestly think we want to attract players to whom this 1993 layout appeals?

Seriously, being a solid RPer doesn't have anything to do with the current age-old look of the web site. It's there probably because nobody has bothered to change it. But the web site is the first thing new people see, and if you compare it to the other MUDs on e.g. topmudsites, you have a hard time explaining how antique pages make the MUD somehow appealing to new players.

And that's what the web site look is for. Not only for functionality, but to appeal to new players. Maybe you think it's irrelevant, but it's not. It's a part of the image that new people get, and currently it's pretty much in 1993.

I don't like it when the topic gets changed on my topics, but what I do like is an argument as the one above, so PLEASE continue.  :wink:

QuoteI don't like players who are always willing to criticize but never willing to submit their own ideas for criticism.

I don't like players who seem to be trying to win brownie points by claiming that everyone who has an issue with Arm is a 'whiner' and the immortals who feed this behavior.

I don't like how when someone critiques someone else everything is fine, but when they get critiqued or their idea does, then suddenly the criticizer should 'go away'.

I don't like players who post on the board who qualify their posts trying to make it seem as if 'everyone' is on their side.

Quoted because I agree and the thing I hate most about Arm is the other people involved.

DN, I never said that I have no problems with the mud.  I simply refuse to discuss them with you because you have NOTHING to do with them and disucssing them with you can do NOTHING but HURT the mud.  Basically, I already said this.

Now, as to the rest of your dislikes...Very mature.

Since I addressed your first two dislikes above, to your third:

QuoteI don't like how when someone critiques someone else everything is fine, but when they get critiqued or their idea does, then suddenly the criticizer should 'go away'.

Well, when you stop attacking me by saying that I'm criticizing people instead of trying to discuss something, I'll stop telling you to go away.

I think everyone should sit down for a moment and think about the question.

QuoteCan you think of anything -bad- about arm?..

Note the lack of the word  hate. I just think it's a little too emotive.

Also, saying that you only hate other users is a rather blunt argument for a Multi-user-*.

Quote from: "spawnloser"

QuoteI don't like how when someone critiques someone else everything is fine, but when they get critiqued or their idea does, then suddenly the criticizer should 'go away'.

Well, when you stop attacking me by saying that I'm criticizing people instead of trying to discuss something, I'll stop telling you to go away.

Quote from: "spawnloser"Suggesting something that is obviously an over-reactive bit of tripe will never endear someone to your point of view.

That is not a criticism? Your right it's more like the attacks you accuse me of.

When you do it its "discussion", when I do it its "an attack".

Also as for the web page discussion. I think its fine. Shiny advanced web pages often lead to shitty RP.

Quote from: "spawnloser"DN, I never said that I have no problems with the mud.  I simply refuse to discuss them with you because you have NOTHING to do with them and disucssing them with you can do NOTHING but HURT the mud.

Are you seriously saying that discussing the defects of the MUD hurts it? So if we all be quiet and cozy, everything's gonna be alright?

I would say that the only way the MUD is going to evolve is by first discussing constructively what's wrong with it.

Quotespawnloser wrote:
It is poorly implemented? Saying a thing doesn't make it so. Tell us why you think it is poorly implemented.
I said, twice. It feels like a laggy connection. I've been to muds where they have solved the movement lag problem with consecutive messages like "You start moving southwards", that's one way of solving them.

Ugh! If something like this were ever done on Arm...I'd immediately quit playing and give it up.

It's the number one reason I don't play SOI, I find it absolutely irritating.

Quote from: "jhunter"Ugh! If something like this were ever done on Arm...I'd immediately quit playing and give it up.

It's the number one reason I don't play SOI, I find it absolutely irritating.

So you choose your MUDs primarily based on the movement echoes?

Anyway, that's one way to implement a sophisticated movement lag. Even returning the prompt would be better. But to simply silently accept all commands and output nothing... that sucks.

Armageddon's user interface is by far the slowest MUD interface I've ever used. And network lag doesn't account for everything.

Quote from: "Dead Newbie"Shiny advanced web pages often lead to shitty RP.

Oh gee... I've seen a lot of shitty RP on Arm, so simple web pages must lead to shitty RP, too.

Or maybe web page look has nothing to do with the RP the MUD contains.

No, that's a ridiculous question. It's just one thing in particular that get's on my nerves really bad.

"You begin walking west."

think NO FUCKING SHIT, I just entered a command that should've made me walk that direction...that was a completely usless piece of information that I didn't need on my screen.

Zore, my only complaint would hurt the mud to discuss it.  It should not be discussed openly as it is of a much too sensitive nature.

DN, when you attack me, I won't be kind in return.

That is all.  I've said my piece.  In general, bitching about the mud in this kind of format will not accomplish anything.  If you want to accomplish anything, talk to the people who can make it happen, not a bunch of other people that can't.

Quote from: "jhunter"No, that's a ridiculous question. It's just one thing in particular that get's on my nerves really bad.

If a simple message like that is enough motivation for you to stop playing Armageddon, that's your choice.

But of course, you could gag it clientwise. After all, clientwise scripting is often suggested as a quick fix for Arm's lack of colour, absurd "nosave" command, and so on.

Quotethink NO FUCKING SHIT, I just entered a command that should've made me walk that direction...that was a completely usless piece of information that I didn't need on my screen.

Sometimes commands are not passed through. It happens to me alot with emotes, but I haven't yet determined what causes it.

Edit: You must be against "You start crafting" type messages, too?

QuoteQuote:
think NO FUCKING SHIT, I just entered a command that should've made me walk that direction...that was a completely usless piece of information that I didn't need on my screen.
Sometimes commands are not passed through. It happens to me alot with emotes, but I haven't yet determined what causes it.

I've never once in ten years had that happen on any mud.

I don't see the point in adding something that serves no purpose to the rest of us, because there is one person who really seems to hate just about everything about Arm, just quit playing if you hate so much about it Zore. I wouldn't miss you.
*shrugs*

The period of my greatest desire to play Arm being on Saturday afternoons, resigning to do something else instead, getting involved in said thing, and not remembering about Arm until 9PM PST.

I also -really- dislike the GDB for all the posts about people <stand> <scan>ing, twink thieving, people just not playing along... it destroys my faith in you all.

How is a movement echo sophisticated?  To me its jarring and somewhat annoying.  I would ask to be able to emote through the combat delay, just like you can emote during crafting.  Other than that I say keep it as it is, it doesn't interfere with the game.

The webpage is fine as it is in my opinion.  Tons of pictures and scrolling info on guilds and everything...its all a bunch of clutter to me.  A "modern" layout, by my understanding of what you want to see, is a more graphical interface.

As far as this argument, its a discussion and people have the right to offer -constructive- criticism regardless of their own contributions.  This isn't a contest to see who can out post the other or who can get the best idea off, I interpreted this as a thread about how to improve the game.  We all have different ideas on that and seriously, hostility on a GDB for a MUD is pointless.

And before anyone wants to accuse me of sucking up to an Imm or something, Sanvean isn't the only one who would like to read through a thread without seeing personal attacks.  Sometimes dropping a point or expressing yourself then letting your opinions stand for themselves works.

Quote from: "jhunter"I don't see the point in adding something that serves no purpose to the rest of us, because there is one person who really seems to hate just about everything about Arm, just quit playing if you hate so much about it Zore. I wouldn't miss you.
*shrugs*

Thanks for jumping straight into ad hominems. I'm not going to even dignify that with a response.

But I will point out though, that there is something seriously wrong if a simple list of my personal dislikes as requested by the original poster creates this much hate and mayhem.

I sincerely hope the posters in this thread (including myself) do not represent the playerbase as a whole.

QuoteThanks for jumping straight into ad hominems. I'm not going to even dignify that with a response.

*snickers*

You realize...you just did? :lol:

QuoteYes, the point is that you should know exactly when it's a command delay and when it's a network delay, and commands that are not delayed (like emotes) should not be delayed. The current code just stacks everything in a pile, outputs nothing informative and picks the commands one by one.

I agree that emotes should be outside the que, but nothing else, not even other commands without delay, and the problem otherwise is not with code, but the player...Don't stack commands and you will not have that problem.

QuoteA good command delay interferes with immersion? Colour that can be turned off interferes with immersion? Shops open all the time interferes with immersion?

Exactly what do you mean?

I don't remember saying that color interfers with immersion or shops closing...where the hell do you get that? But since you feel like bringing that up again, Armageddon has color, offwhite text on black backround with some things highlighted in a bright white, By the arguement you have that color can be turned off, so that argument can be turned around, if you want color, add it through your client, me, I don't like it and don't use it and I've never played any muds with large amounts of color, and I've been mudding since the very beginning. Shops closing HELPS with immersion if anything, since it is realistic. As to things to tell you that your under command delay, they suck, they add to spam, they are jarring and the repetition drives one (or at least me) Insane, e:you begin walking east:you walk east:e:you begin walking east...then, add in 5 or six other pc's and npcs moving...UGH...it's horrid horrid spam. Sit here after walk for a while actually talking to the screen "I know I'm fucking walking east" then have to sit there and make my client remove the message...its painful.

QuoteThe delays make it harder to emote during combat because they are coded poorly. They make emoting harder. They slow the game beyond what's necessary for a realistic command delay.

Because of the poorly implemented command delay, the limitations of the code hit you straight in the face.

As I said above, I agree emotes should be outside the que and/or delay, but nothing else, and who decides on what is a realistic command delay? Goes to your point on realism verses playability, I think most the delays are unrealisticly short, but if they were realistic it would be unplayable.
But You say the delay is poorly coded, I say That is the way the powers that be want it.

QuoteI already described the defects of the crime code in a previous message:
Quote:
Things are not black-and-white on Zalanthas. There are different levels of crime. There are different odds at getting caught. These depend on factors like time, place, skill, the type of crime and such. The length of detention is absurdly small, but I don't have serious problems with that since it's a playability issue.

Different levels of crime? Huh? The templars say what is a crime, and I've yet to deal with one that thinks there is different levels of crime, committing a crime is often a personal affront to a templar....Now, that is pc's, the code goes much much lighter, but I tell you, the crim code is not going to be changed anytime soon, if ever, but that is because of the players that then take advantage of the kinder gentler crim code.

QuoteThere is other threat besides death. This is a point many players ignore. Death effectively ends all RP on the victim's side. Other forms of threat do not.

Though true, the other forms of threat carry no weight with players unless backed with death, This is unfortunate...so, On this point, in light of your clearer explanation I'll agree. And it gets rather upsetting at times, often even ruining good scenes...shrug...anyway, that's worth another thread, onward.

QuoteYes, that was an example of a situation where strive for realism decreased playability. Because someone said people do not put realism before playability, I provided this counter-example.

Quote- - Or that he will never have a bowel movement unless you rp one?

Yes, that is putting playability before realism. Which is how it should be.

No, it should be is balanced between the two, and armageddon does a damm good job of this IMO, You want playability before realism, go play archea...Heh.

QuoteYou honestly think we want to attract players to whom this 1993 layout appeals?

I honestly think that the players who look at the webpage as a tool and documentation without any distractions and are happy are the ones who tend to enjoy the game, play well, and stay around, yes. I'm not attracted by the cover I'm attracted by the content.
Me, I think we want to attract other players who are attracted by content, who are tired of the other muds with the flowery web pages who claim RP Intense or RP enforced and don't live up to it. They start searching, before long they are just skimming over these fancy modern web pages that all look the same, then, they get to the Armageddon web page and it is different then the rest, catches the eye, they stop, maybe think Hhhmmm, maybe I will read a bit....

Quote from: "SpyGuy"How is a movement echo sophisticated?

A sophisticated user interface keeps the user completely informed of what's going on. I agree that some people may find movement echoes a bit disturbing. I could compare that to the use of the brief command, but that would probably derail the thread too much.

QuoteTo me its jarring and somewhat annoying.  I would ask to be able to emote through the combat delay, just like you can emote during crafting.

Yes, a sophisticated command delay wouldn't stop -all- commands just because some commands need delay. But I'm not even sure if you can change the way emotes are handled without changing the whole command delay system.

QuoteThe webpage is fine as it is in my opinion.  Tons of pictures and scrolling info on guilds and everything...its all a bunch of clutter to me.

I didn't say I wanted tons of pictures. I said that a modern look would probably appeal more to new players. You are free to disagree.

QuoteA "modern" layout, by my understanding of what you want to see, is a more graphical interface.

Yes, a modern layout would probably be more graphical, and would probably include other typefaces besides the default font of the browser. The web site is an integral part of the image other people get, and I'm not sure if the image is optimal right now.

QuoteThis isn't a contest to see who can out post the other or who can get the best idea off, I interpreted this as a thread about how to improve the game.

Exactly. Most of my 'dislikes' are such that they can be fixed if they are conceived to be problems. For some, like the low playerbase, there is no quick fix. But that doesn't mean people should shut up about such things.

Come on, folks.. At this point someone just has to let it go.. You won't change your opinion and this will just go on forever or until an admin has to play the babysitter once again..

QuoteBut I will point out though, that there is something seriously wrong if a simple list of my personal dislikes as requested by the original poster creates this much hate and mayhem.

Hhhmmm, I hope I'm not coming across as hostile/hate/mayhem, not my intent.

Zore had the longest, and IMO best thought out list, I wanted to talk about that list and so posted. Many of the things listed as dislikes I would have listed as likes.:)
Anyway, onward...Wow, six pages.

Quote from: "X-D"I agree that emotes should be outside the que, but nothing else, not even other commands without delay, and the problem otherwise is not with code, but the player...Don't stack commands and you will not have that problem.

In combat, you don't even have to stack commands to get the awful command delay. And emote is not the only command which should be exempt from the delay, the look command is another one.

QuoteBut since you feel like bringing that up again, Armageddon has color, offwhite text on black backround with some things highlighted in a bright white, By the arguement you have that color can be turned off, so that argument can be turned around, if you want color, add it through your client, me, I don't like it and don't use it and I've never played any muds with large amounts of color, and I've been mudding since the very beginning.

Write shorter sentences, it's more easy to read. Some like colour, some do not. The most flexible option would be to let the user decide.

QuoteBut You say the delay is poorly coded, I say That is the way the powers that be want it.

Certainly. But I hope "powers that be" agree that there's often room for improvement.

QuoteDifferent levels of crime? Huh?

Yes. Do you find it unrealistic that the militia would pursue a templar murderer with more effort than a pickpocket? Do you find it unrealistic that every single soldier has this instant way of knowing who's wanted?

Quotebut I tell you, the crim code is not going to be changed anytime soon, if ever, but that is because of the players that then take advantage of the kinder gentler crim code.

It might not be changed. That still doesn't stop us from discussing the crim code.

QuoteThough true, the other forms of threat carry no weight with players unless backed with death, This is unfortunate...

No, that's bad RP. Torture and other forms of physical coercion are often ignored, but that's not a fact of life, that's just bad RP. Okay, I shouldn't say "bad RP" because people saying "bad RP" are often on my dislike list.

QuoteMe, I think we want to attract other players who are attracted by content, who are tired of the other muds with the flowery web pages who claim RP Intense or RP enforced and don't live up to it.

We want to attract solid RPers. There's no need to imply that all other muds suck, we've heard enough of it already.

QuoteThey start searching, before long they are just skimming over these fancy modern web pages that all look the same, then, they get to the Armageddon web page and it is different then the rest, catches the eye, they stop, maybe think Hhhmmm, maybe I will read a bit....

That's an interesting theory.

In reference to Zore's list:

Quote from: "X-D"I wanted to talk about that list and so posted. Many of the things listed as dislikes I would have listed as likes.:)

I'm with X-D on this.

Quote from: "spawnloser"
DN, when you attack me, I won't be kind in return.

I am "discussing" you. Heh.

Quote from: "spawnloser"
That is all.  I've said my piece.  In general, bitching about the mud in this kind of format will not accomplish anything.  If you want to accomplish anything, talk to the people who can make it happen, not a bunch of other people that can't.

You know, your discussion of other people's bitching will not accomplish anything and yet you insist on doing it. Have you ever tried to talk with the 'ppl who can make it happen'? It's like banging your head on the wall. Sure, let me email them and never get a reply...real productive.

Jhunter, stop being silly.

Quote from: "jhunter"
"You begin walking west."

think NO FUCKING SHIT, I just entered a command that should've made me walk that direction...that was a completely usless piece of information that I didn't need on my screen

This mud gives you a lot of information one person or another may find useless. Like sitting at a table etc, it gives you a message that you sit at said table, and you obviously already know you typed sit table.

Whats cool about that code is you can change directions midway and I don't see a problem with it in general. Maybe if you had played a mud with that style for longer than five minutes you would have a better perspective. What if it simply didn't have the emote?

Quote from: "Zore"Oh gee... I've seen a lot of shitty RP on Arm, so simple web pages must lead to shitty RP, too.

Or maybe web page look has nothing to do with the RP the MUD contains.

Yeah the second one. I was trying to be supportive of you and how you repay me? Et tu Zore?

Quote from: "Dead Newbie"

Quote from: "spawnloser"
DN, when you attack me, I won't be kind in return.

I am "discussing" you. Heh.

Cute.

Quote from: "Dead Newbie"

Quote from: "spawnloser"
That is all.  I've said my piece.  In general, bitching about the mud in this kind of format will not accomplish anything.  If you want to accomplish anything, talk to the people who can make it happen, not a bunch of other people that can't.

You know, your discussion of other people's bitching will not accomplish anything and yet you insist on doing it. Have you ever tried to talk with the 'ppl who can make it happen'? It's like banging your head on the wall. Sure, let me email them and never get a reply...real productive.

I don't know what you're talking about.  I have gotten things resolved.  Granted, that was all through one particular IMM...and yes, sometimes things are delayed longer than I would like, but oh well.  The IMMs have lives outside of the game and can't devote all their time to making sure our short attention spans are placated.

Shorter...hhhmmm.

Look still involves an action, I'm undecided on it being ouside delay/que though lean towards it staying as is.

QuoteSome like colour, some do not. The most flexible option would be to let the user decide.

Which is what we currently have, except instead of the staff having to take time to decide on and implement colors, you have too.

QuoteYes. Do you find it unrealistic that the militia would pursue a templar murderer with more effort than a pickpocket? Do you find it unrealistic that every single soldier has this instant way of knowing who's wanted?

On earth nowdays, sure I would, but on Zalanthas, No.
Either one has commited a crime against The Highlord/Sunking, there is no higher or lower form of crime. At one time here in the U.S. One got a harsher penalty for stealing a horse then killing a person..Unrealistic?
It is a different culture, and that is the way things work, leave it at that.
As to knowing instantly who is wanted, no, not unrealistic either, but the IC sensativity censer prevents me from explaining more.

QuoteIt might not be changed. That still doesn't stop us from discussing the crim code

True, but I was just pointing out that the code not getting changed is more the fault of players then staff.

Quote

QuoteQuote:
Though true, the other forms of threat carry no weight with players unless backed with death, This is unfortunate...

No, that's bad RP. Torture and other forms of physical coercion are often ignored, but that's not a fact of life, that's just bad RP. Okay, I shouldn't say "bad RP" because people saying "bad RP" are often on my dislike list.

Grin, I did not feel like coming out and saying "bad RP" but...Yes.

Quote

QuoteThey start searching, before long they are just skimming over these fancy modern web pages that all look the same, then, they get to the Armageddon web page and it is different then the rest, catches the eye, they stop, maybe think Hhhmmm, maybe I will read a bit....

That's an interesting theory.

Not so much theory, I know of 3 or more people who did just that.


[/quote]

Quote from: "spawnloser"I don't know what you're talking about.  I have gotten things resolved.  Granted, that was all through one particular IMM...and yes, sometimes things are delayed longer than I would like, but oh well.  The IMMs have lives outside of the game and can't devote all their time to making sure our short attention spans are placated.

Well, for example, I was in a clan for an IC year or more and the clan immortal never let me onto the clan forum or responded to emails in anyw way. I have emailed several imms in different clans with questions about clan policies etc while I was in the clan and never received responses. That's what I mean by banging my head against the wall. I guess its just a real -long- delay. So, eventually, you just stop bothering or I did.

QuoteJhunter, stop being silly.

jhunter wrote:

"You begin walking west."

think NO FUCKING SHIT, I just entered a command that should've made me walk that direction...that was a completely usless piece of information that I didn't need on my screen



This mud gives you a lot of information one person or another may find useless. Like sitting at a table etc, it gives you a message that you sit at said table, and you obviously already know you typed sit table.

Whats cool about that code is you can change directions midway and I don't see a problem with it in general. Maybe if you had played a mud with that style for longer than five minutes you would have a better perspective. What if it simply didn't have the emote?

I'm not being silly DN, it's my personal preference.

I put few hours into it before I got sick of it, it wasn't the only thing about the game that irritated me but it was one of the big ones...seemed like I was spending more time waiting for movement to get done than doing anything else.
I don't need to do something more than a few minutes to know whether or not I like it, some things I don't need to try at all.
That's the equivalent of someone saying :" Stop being silly Dead Newbie, how do you know you wouldn't like getting fucked in the ass? You didn't do it very long..."
Trust me, I don't need to try it to know that I wouldn't be down with it. :roll:

Quote from: "jhunter"
I put few hours into it before I got sick of it, it wasn't the only thing about the game that irritated me but it was one of the big ones...seemed like I was spending more time waiting for movement to get done than doing anything else.

God forbid you wouldn't be able to ride from Tuluk to Allanak in 10 minutes :P

What I like about it is that there is sort of like a crafting delay on movement. You can still do other things while you are 'moving'. What I am saying, if the echo wasn't there would you still throw a fit? Is if the echo that bugs you or the time it takes to move? I know as a player of dwarves, the movement delay makes me want to ride around town all the time.

QuoteGod forbid you wouldn't be able to ride from Tuluk to Allanak in 10 minutes

Never do it in ten minutes, I actually do take a bit of time. I'd rather see more rooms added if they wanted to force us into making it take longer instead of more move lag, I don't like the amount that there is already but I put up with it...any more than that and I'd just get bored of wasting all my time waiting for a single movement to go through.

It's a playability vs. realism issue...more realistic...yes, more fun...fuck no.

Quote from: "jhunter"I'd rather see more rooms added if they wanted to force us into making it take longer instead of more move lag, I don't like the amount that there is already but I put up with it...any more than that and I'd just get bored of wasting all my time waiting for a single movement to go through.

It's a playability vs. realism issue...more realistic...yes, more fun...fuck no.

Playability cutsboth ways. Its real lame when you're trying to be a raider and you have some merchants from Tuluk to Luir's who make their kank run then type in the entire route stacked. At least I thought so. These outdoor rooms are supposed to be huge. I wouldn't mind it to be coded in a similar way to SOI's movement code. Where there is a brief period of time where I see that you are leaving but you are not quite gone yet.

Don't feed the trolls.

My one and only pet peeve is that emotes are effected by movement and combat delay. I wish they weren't, but it's probably not very simple to fix.

What I don't like about Arm is the GDB.  It's 95% a bunch of people saying "No I said this," or "No I clearly said this and if you even read what I posted you would know," along with a whole bunch of page long posts with people quoting and requoting each other, quibbling over minutae of trivia.  Half the time ya'll are actually agreeing with one another, you just don't like the choice of wording the other person used and in the end, you're bickering over nothing.

Deep breath now boys and girls.  It's just a game.

I think most people use saturdays to leave their rooms and grace the nonbelivers with their rightious presence. - Call it a deed of good faith.

I cant say i have any problems with Arm, its i have always enjoyed myself every time i logged on.

The thing I dislike about Armageddon is that there is never enough immortals for me.  I think I should have 3 personal immortals watching my every move, and getting everything I require.  

Hmm.  Perhaps because I'm not living up to my end of the commitment, and sending in an email at least once a week about what I'm doing with my character to my clan immortals...  that might be why I'm not getting what I want done.

Edited for Dead Newbie...


Other things I don't like or could be changed:

1. I would like all Imm's to be as professional as possible and -always- leave personal opinions at the door when making decisions. Some are good at this.. Some are not. I don't want a friend as an Imm, I want a rational, non-bias leader. I am not bashing the staff, you all do a great Job. I just would like the professionalism that I would get from my boss if you are my Imm, because that is how I see you. I don't feel I always get that.

2. I hate the drinking code. I think it sucks. I wish there was some way to fix it and make it only last for a few Ic hours, I should not be drunk three days later. What would be cool is if your PC drinks -a lot- They should loose a bit of stamina for a IC half day or so.. Becuase I am not ever drunk for very long after I stop drinking.. But I am certainly hung over for a while.

3. I like the idea of mounted combat and wish it was coded more in favor of the rider. Why does the guy below get the advantage? Kanks are big and covered in chitin damit! And that guy's head is in perfect range for me to bowl it down with a morning star.

4. I would like to see more crime and smaller gang like tension amongst the common population. I would like to see a more Rinthy like feel come out into the main populace, slum lords. Take a bit of power away from the noble houses. Life is too damn good for the PC's right now.

Quote from: "spawnloser"What point is there in watching a movie when you already know the end?

Are you seriously saying there's no movies you like to see more than once?  You can know the plot of a story and still be excited to see how it plays out.  Keeping everything a secret doesn't make the game better -- it just makes 95% of the playerbase get shut out of being part of anything other than "wandering random damage" RPTs and tavern-sitting.  Ooooh, the excitement!

Hmm.  These aren't dislikes, so much as "wish-list" items.

1.  Slightly more robust aliases.  The ability to put in placeholders - so that I can 'alias feetdrag $1 (dragging his feet)', then type 'feetdrag west' and have it interpreted as the same as if I typed 'west (dragging his feet)'.

2.  Fixes to anything that can't recognize a 2.<keyword>.

Few other things, but nothing comes to mind as critical.

Quote from: "JollyGreenGiant"1.  Slightly more robust aliases.  The ability to put in placeholders - so that I can 'alias feetdrag $1 (dragging his feet)', then type 'feetdrag west' and have it interpreted as the same as if I typed 'west (dragging his feet)'.

I'm curious why you'd want work put into something that can be done with a mudclient?

reading pages of back and forth between people who think they are right but are all just idiots for jacking off on each other.

Uhg.

See my new sig.

Quote from: "CRW"

Quote from: "JollyGreenGiant"1.  Slightly more robust aliases.  The ability to put in placeholders - so that I can 'alias feetdrag $1 (dragging his feet)', then type 'feetdrag west' and have it interpreted as the same as if I typed 'west (dragging his feet)'.

I'm curious why you'd want work put into something that can be done with a mudclient?

I'd be a fan of allowing more aliases that 10, since I don't play with a client.

Does anyone know were I can get a unix client that does not require me to be root to install?

pueblo?

Quote from: "Vettrock"
Does anyone know were I can get a unix client that does not require me to be root to install?

tintin++ used to compile under unix. Not sure now.

Quote from: "Black Isis"

Quote from: "spawnloser"What point is there in watching a movie when you already know the end?

Are you seriously saying there's no movies you like to see more than once?  You can know the plot of a story and still be excited to see how it plays out.

It is never again like watching it the first time.

Quote from: "spawnloser"

Quote from: "Black Isis"

Quote from: "spawnloser"What point is there in watching a movie when you already know the end?

Are you seriously saying there's no movies you like to see more than once?  You can know the plot of a story and still be excited to see how it plays out.

It is never again like watching it the first time.

or reading it the first time. True, true. Thats why I always read the books before I see the movie. Want the purest experience first. But then I still go back and read all the great books a few times. :mrgreen:

Thanks.

Quote from: "jhunter"Gosh, he's sooo good and above the rest of us.

Enough already.

- - If there's anything I have a problem with in Arm, it's the GDB.  There are three major reasons for this:

1) People tend to forget that it's damn near impossible to convey tone over the internet.  Is that smiley face and politeness a reassurance that I am speaking friendly, or am I speaking sarcastically?  Have I worded something clearly, or do I come off as a cold-blooded son of a bitch?

2) Anonymity brings out the ugliness in people.  Something about it being harder to get slapped for what they do tends to cause people to set asie inhibitions.  It's the same reason why people make a right into oncoming traffic, cut someone off to go 10 mph causing them to slam on brakes to avoid a collision, instead of waiting 2 seconds longer and slipping in behind them when there is no traffic behind said person. When people are harder to reach and more anonymous, they tend to let their hair down. The internet is incredibly anonymous.

3) People unconsciously assume that other people will know what they are talking about.  This isn't a personality flaw, just remember you may have to clarify what you mean by ellaborating.

- - So what should we do?  We let things go.  We give people the benefit of the doubt.  We question if they got what we said before we quote them out of context and start throwing around the word "immature" like it's going out of style.  We immediately clarify points people didn't get, using multiple examples and real life cross-comparissons can help people bridge the gap.  Most of all, we DO NOT SKIM, writing our counterpoints as we go.  That leads to not being able to find the forest because you're lost in the trees.

- - Read this thread from start to finish.  It got ugly.  Where there should have been suggestions on one side, and clarifications on the other, there were a bunch of redirections, misquotations, and redefinitions. Here are some thoughts on the topics discussed, from my point of view as someone who just read every post in this thread. This is what I would have responded with.

ANSI
- - There's no reason to only have 3 colors. If you have a different color for main descriptions (of rooms, characters), combat spam, objects, characters/mobiles, and objects present in a room, it makes visually parsing the information easier. It turns spam into... well... color-categorized spam.  If a room has 5 objects and 5 characters/mobiles in it, you look for the color you needed and cut the spam in half.

- - ANSI can be turned off, and is disabled by default, so there's no reason to shoot it down because you hate color.



Delays
- - I'd have just suggested idea'ing (I know that's not a word, shut up) adding a prompt flag that tells you what delay you are experiencing. People who wanted it would have it in an unintrusive way. Even if you hated the idea, there are a lot of more important ideas on the backburner that have to be done first.



Harshness
- - I would have clarified what I meant by harshness after the first instance it was misunderstood.  I'm not trying to come down on anyone, I'm just trying to say that the longer people have the wrong idea as to what you mean, the longer they'll keep arguing against a point you haven't made (and possibly agree with them on).

- - In any case, it's my personal opinion that there's just nowhere near enough pkilling.  There needs to be more clan conflicts, coersion, extortion, and beatings which end within inches of being terminal.  Mostly more clan conflict, because that is the fuel that makes the RP machine run.



Crimcode
- - Let's be reasonable here.  If I try to kill a templar, it is a bigger crime than picking a pocket.  It's pretty clear in the public docs, the game docs, and the clan docs that a commoner's life means shit to the nobles.  If you anger a merchant, s/he is NOT going to be able to rally an army of city guards to cut you down in an adrenaline-soaked frenzy anywhere near as well as someone those guards have to answer to.



Secrets
- - Why argue over whether or not things are still fun if you know how they will end?  Arm is fun because of the secrets active PCs keep from one another, not world secrets lurking out there to kill you. Part of the reason the world is so hard to traverse is so you can't easily go solo, miss out on interacting with others, sightsee, then find a new MUD.



Whining
- - This thread asked for people to list things about Arm that they felt were not good.  It isn't right that this thread got as nasty as it seemed to.  This wasn't a thread about improving the Southlands that somehow trailed off into griping about desert creatures and code problems, then turn into the 17,000th thread to flame "bad thief RP" and demand ludicrous code changes to STEAL. People were supposed to list their problems this time.



- - At this point I can't remember any other argument points. I'm just going to reply normally to other issues I spotted.



Red Storm
- - Red Storm is supposed to be a piss-poor frontier town.  It's supposed to have a shit selection of goods and slaughter criminals on the spot.  HOWEVER, you're entirely right in thinking it should be more active.  Red Storm will only be active once the world gets violent and nasty again.  Red Storm is a haven for traders and people who just don't want to die.  I believe that without the major conflicts to keep certain clans running, you don't need a haven for smugglers and people with prices on their heads.  That is why Red Storm is inactive.



The Way
- - It's really better the way it is.  If you expect people to turn in reports by hand, you're going to have people crossing the Known World in unrealistic time CONSTANTLY.  It's also an awesome tool for allowing players to get approval from Imm-controlled IC superiors.  The only problem with it is that it allows easy transfer of information.  That's where mindbenders come in.  I'm afraid I can't give details, but if you ever get psionicist karma and love masterminding things, you cannot beat a 'bender.



Mounted Combat
- - Mounted combat has actually been overrated for centuries.  If you look at historical instances, skilled infantry slaughter skilled calvalry.  For some reason, though, a number of military strategists through time have ignored history and just figured that since mounted combatants had an advantage over green soldiers, the same would hold true against veterans.  There are a number of reasons, but it comes down to a reach disadvantage, a balance disadvantage, and a mount-uncompatibility problem.

- - I think Machiavelli put it best when he said (with some punctuation fixes), "... one finds that horses, like men, sometimes have little spirit and sometimes have a great deal. Quite often it happens that a spirited horse is ridden by a timid man and a timid horse is ridden by a man of spirit. Of whichever kind the dispairity be, the result is subversive of utility and order."



Immortals
- - Imms are people too.  We get busy, emails get eaten in mechanical failures or bounced back from their servers (people who've emailed me are preparing flames as I type this), and sometimes requests require a higher imm to approve. There's not much beaurocracy up top, but there is some. When you have enough emails, you may forget to email player X to let them know you're just waiting for a reaction from a particular imm.

- - I don't think Immortals should try to act professional.  I find that superfiscial, and I believe it leads to people getting the idea they're better than the playerbase.  I've seen enough MUDs and Chat RPs with people who act professional, and most of them are run by people who desperately need a beating.  All of the imms I've dealt with in Arm, as both a player and an Imm, have taken the approach of speaking to me like a person addressing another person.  I think the mindset of not lording over people tends to make you... well... less prone to lord over people.

- - One last item: Immortals came from the playerbase, and it's a pretty accurate cross-section.  I'll pray for you all.

Eh,
Thanks Gesht.

Whew.. That was a mouthful Gehst. But well put.

However I still like mounted combat.

An here is a smiley face for you.  :wink: (context being that of a cutesy wink)

Quote from: "sarahjc"Whew.. That was a mouthful Gehst. But well put.

However I still like mounted combat.

That reminds me of something I don't like.  Although I can't find it in the docs, I don't think it is a secret that you could tug the reins of certain combat-compatible mounts and they would do a cool manuver.  The manuver was only slightly useful, but looked damned cool to me, and gave a good excuse to ride something other than a Zalanthan pack mule (AKA kank).  A long while ago a bought one of these combat mounts, only to find the feature had been temporarily disabled due to abuse!  Argh!  :evil:  I suppose this isn't the MUDs fault, but rather the bastards that where abusing the feature.  And the feature is _still_ "temporarily" disabled.  :cry:  For some reason hunters, warriors and raiders all riding around on pack mules (aka kanks) really bugs me.

AC

QuoteRed Storm
- - Red Storm is supposed to be a piss-poor frontier town. It's supposed to have a shit selection of goods and slaughter criminals on the spot. HOWEVER, you're entirely right in thinking it should be more active. Red Storm will only be active once the world gets violent and nasty again. Red Storm is a haven for traders and people who just don't want to die. I believe that without the major conflicts to keep certain clans running, you don't need a haven for smugglers and people with prices on their heads. That is why Red Storm is inactive.

You're never going to have smugglers and traders hiding out in a town that is nowhere near any major trade routes though.  There's not much traffic in Red Storm because it's hard to get to and there's relatively little in the way of reward for doing so -- the only real commodity there is spice, and you don't make _that_ much of a profit unless you take it elsewhere -- it's like trying to sell cocaine in Colombia.  Unfortunately, trying to take it elsewhere is a dangerous proposition, so there's a lot of easier ways to make money.  I don't know if it's really a haven either, since you have to travel through wherever the major war zone would probably be to get there, unless you're coming straight from Allanak.  It'd be better if it was off to the side, so you could run there without having to run through a bunch of hostile forces.

I will say that another one of my biggest problems with the game is that the inhabitants of the wildlands are ludicrously dangerous.  Every random tribal is apparently some sort of swordmaster and every animal is some sort of combination of a lion, an elephant, and a cheetah, with a few exceptions.  Granted, if you know what you are doing (in a metagaming sense), you can avoid them and do okay on your own, provided you have prior knowledge of the game, but that is pretty cheesy.  Zalanthas' wildlands are like a forest populated with nothing but rabid grizzlies and wolves, and it's impossible to live off the land unless you're Paul Bunyan, as opposed to real life, where it's fairly easy for anyone who's read, say, an army survival manual, and has the stomach for it to live off the land on berries, roots, and small animals like squirrels and rabbits, with the chances of a random bear or wolf attack being fairly remote at best.

As far as mounted combat being superior to a footsoldier in Arm, I think that assumes that Zalanthan mounts are as trainable as a horse or elephant or camel to pay attention to the reins as much as the chaos around them.  Perhaps a kank or inix's survival instincts kick in and override all training, making staying atop them a chore that takes away from the combatant's ability to focus one slicing open the head of the very annoying adversary below them.

I'm still on my first character in ARM.  And I haven't really been playing long enough to agree or disagree with a lot of you.  But as a newbie, it was most difficult to find a niche.

It wasn't until I joined the Byn that I found some connection to the mud world.  At first the Zalanthas was just another interesting setting.  But now that there are others that actually 'look' for me or expect me to be there,  I find it a lot more fun.  Even if it's just latrine duty.

So finding a niche was something I didn't like, but now I'm over it.  And when I have to create a new character it won't be as bad.

I'm not always on a client that has client-side aliases.  Also, on the one or two clients I've tried, activating client-side aliases always required a / before the alias. While that isn't major, occasionally I find it slightly annoying, especially since the reason I create aliases is to avoid having to type awkward commands or things I frequently misspell.

QuoteZalanthas' wildlands are like a forest populated with nothing but rabid grizzlies and wolves, and it's impossible to live off the land unless you're Paul Bunyan, as opposed to real life, where it's fairly easy for anyone who's read, say, an army survival manual, and has the stomach for it to live off the land on berries, roots, and small animals like squirrels and rabbits, with the chances of a random bear or wolf attack being fairly remote at best.

Funny, that's something I like about Arm. ;)

The NPC coding is poor, but I think that it succesfully, if crudely conveys that the wilderness isn't supposed to be at all similar to the wilderness in real life.  It's supposed to be the wilderness from hell.

QuoteYou're never going to have smugglers and traders hiding out in a town that is nowhere near any major trade routes though.

- - It is near a major trade route.  It's just a little ways south of the largest trade route in the Known World.  The catch is, unlike Allanak, you can legally trade anything (except slaves) and there aren't any people to "tax" or "fine" you for the crime of having money that clicks together too loudly. Since everything is peaceful in the world, Red Storm isn't as appealing. There will never be major activity in Red Storm until the rest of the world is active.

- - Homogenizing Red Storm to be exactly like the rest of the world defeats the point of Red Storm existing in the first place. Why on earth should people be able to make an easy profit off of poor people? I'd rather see Red Storm have a handful of people who represent Red Storm than dozens of people who want the Allanak experience but without the hassles of nobles and laws.

- - We do not change something in the game to make it more popular, we change things to make them better. I made it posible for people to live in poverty in Red Storm because there are supposed to be people living in poverty in Red Storm. I added some cheap vegetables and flour because Red Storm grows both. I'm not going to make it easy for people to make tons of money off of the village, because people aren't supposed to be getting wealthy that way.

- - If you are able to make good connections, Red Storm can become a place of trade even without major conflict. As a player, I was able to pull it off. Anyone can if they're resourceful and lucky enough (I'm not going to claim luck wasn't involved, heh).



- - As for "pull reins", I think that was disbanded to make way for the CHARGE skill.

Hmm.. curious, what is this new, "charge skill" I can pretty much guess what it is. Anyone know when it might be done also? I think it would be a great thing, it would definetly add more adreniline to battle, and have more people want to fight on mounts.

- - I'm pretty sure CHARGE has been in the game for a while.  I know the helpfile is available.  I haven't had a character with it personally, though.

This discussion was a good one until it degenerated quickly, as many seem to do.

This is about what we dislike so here is my poke with a pitchfork.

The kindler and gentler Armageddon-

When I began to play this game it was brutal. Death was very real it came quickly, sometimes it would come right out of the blue and it felt very permanant. With chargen taking a couple weeks it -REALLY- felt permamant.

Nowadays, you have an app in less than 24 hours, sometimes within minutes of dying. Nearly everyone (not all, don't bother getting hyperventilated) becomes irresistably drawn to the corpse of their former PC, many getting involved in the aftermath of their death somehow. I would have much preferred to see them wait a couple days to stew and cool off. There are of course exceptions, though rare as they are I personally do not feel there is enough exception to warrant the immediate approvals.

I think we cater to the timid and the sensitive player way too much. I can't believe we have to ooc'ly ask everyone involved if we want to do graphic scenes. Note that I mean violence, sexual scenes I can understand completely. Where has the brutality gone to?

I am personally willing to sacrifice ten average newbies for every one that comes into this game and enhances it with a realistic and thought provoking character. Instead, we try to draw numbers of players in the hopes of converting them to RPI. While drawing newbies isn't a bad thing, I don't think it should be as strong a focus.

The sad fact is, you are a rare breed. You players who see the magick in this game, you who understand that this is so much more than a generic CircleMUD with beastly fido's. It's the realism that drew me to this game, and while things were not always goodtimes and beer in the days of Armageddon yore, there was an excitement in the air and a sense of adventure that I feel we as a group are losing sight of.

The number of players that have problems with authority is staggering.

Players that have no personal ambition, yet are extremely vocal about problems with there being nothing to do but sit in taverns. Fact is, some people like to sit in taverns. By all means, if you like that, go for it. Those that consider tavern sitting a bad thing, you are who I am talking about. You lack initiative.

To me, the GDB is one of the worst things about this game. Before I would have said IRC and IM, I've witnessed so much trading of ooc info and ooc coordinating via the latter that it sickens me.  The GDB wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for a couple people who bitch constantly, endless complaining and bitching... I mean.. GOD...I know people like this in real life, they are sad self-loathing, probably a little inbred and extremely petty-minded. Most of them live in a ghetto or trailer park. We see them occasionally on Jerry Springer taking their clothes off. What up with that?  

I digress, the GDB should be a forum for discussions and not a soapbox for preaching. I think it should be something all must apply for to post messages, getting rid of guest messages completely and making the poster responsible for their words. Sure, no one can hurt you, but they can ban your ass for being an obtrusive ass that doesn't want to play nice.
You can play by the rules and be as brutal as brutal gets, its when someone is being antagonistic oocly that turns things into shit.

The reason why I think the GDB is worse than IM or IRC is that its where ALL arm players eventually gather and all of us have to listen to the constant whining of a few, many post so much that some of our newer players actually consider some of these morons an authority on things Armageddon. Yes, you don't like being called whiners. Well... if the shoe fits. Its ok to discuss ways of making things better in this game. It isn't ok to lump everything into the "This is why arm sux" category and then pick apart everyone that disagrees with you. If you actually dislike this game, I seriously doubt you'd be posting here at all. And that -is- the irony of all of it. For as much complaining that gets done, they are all Crackageddon heads.

Oh and why did we stop mandatory player beatings?

Many issues that players have brought up in this thread are certainly doable or fixable.  This is a good thread, and I've been reading it closely so that I can relay them to our coders.  However, like the other staffers who have posted, the biggest problem I see that doesn't feel like it's fixable is the GDB.  I'm reminded of a saying that goes something like, "A few rotten apples spoils the whole barrel."  That's certainly true in regards to GDB.  

The staff does not care if the GDB is 'not as bad as other forums', as some posters have claimed.  Th GDB was created with the intent of providing a friendly place for players to meet and discuss the mud.  We set forth the rules, and we expect everyone to follow them.  Most do.  A few don't.  These few are the one who are spoiling it for the rest of us.  

Despite the staff, including myself, encouraging, praising, berating, scolding and even threatening some GDB posters to try change the tone and context of their posts for the better, we have seen very little change.  Every month or so, we make it a point to drop a note reminding posters to play nice.  The idiotic behavior ceases for a few days, then resumes full force.

The GDB was a good tool, it helps both new and old players, it brings you guys closer by providing a place to discuss the mud.  But all that might change.  A couple of the staff have posted already that says basically same thing I have in this thread (and a number of previous ones).  I guess we're at the breaking point, and we're ready to say, hell with it.  It's gotten to the point where the staff are considering just changing GDB to control this trend.  I'm not pleased with this.  Was I so naive to think that people could change their ways?  I'm starting to think so.
Ashyom the Disappointed

I dunno - a few rotten apples will only spoil the whole barrel if the person who is in charge of the barrel leaves the rotten apples in.

There's another saying - don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Perhaps it's time to start denying posting privileges to people who abuse the generosity of the staff in providing this forum. Let people continue to read - there's still tons of very important and useful information here. But stop giving people permission to post, who have made it very clear that they have no desire or intention to be civil.

If someone gets upset about an IG event and would like to BASH people on the GDB, or even contemplate bitching about anything on the GDB I can only advise the following:

A)go beat someone in your local supermarket with a baseball bat.
B)go stomp thirteen puppies into jelly.
C)kill your kitten and hang it from a tree outside your neighbors home with a sign reading "I hate the world" attached to it.
D)Let a donkey kick you in the face.

This is a game, a great game and the best MUD that I've ever played. One IG incident, or problem with the code will not convince me to leave this MUD. The immortals are donig a great job. This thread was great but I too would like to agree it degenerated quickly.

I agree with Bestatte.  Everyone loses their temper, everyone makes bad choices, but the people who are clearly here to detract from the GDB should be the ones dealing with the consequences, not everyone else by virtue of having the OOC-Chatter forum axed.

Quote from: "Bhagharva"The GDB wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for a couple people who bitch constantly, endless complaining and bitching... I mean.. GOD...I know people like this in real life, they are sad self-loathing, probably a little inbred and extremely petty-minded. Most of them live in a ghetto or trailer park. We see them occasionally on Jerry Springer taking their clothes off. What up with that?

Belittling someone for what sort of neighborhood they live in just ain't cool.  It also has nothing to do with what sort of discussions you post on the GDB.

Quote from: "CRW"not everyone else by virtue of having the OOC-Chatter forum axed.

Quote from: "The top of the board"This board is for general discussion of Armageddon MUD. No flames, no IC-sensitive information.

Quote from: "Ashyom"Despite the staff, including myself, encouraging, praising, berating, scolding and even threatening some GDB posters to try change the tone and context of their posts for the better, we have seen very little change. Every month or so, we make it a point to drop a note reminding posters to play nice. The idiotic behavior ceases for a few days, then resumes full force.

Sounds like the Staff is spending too much time on these posters which could be more profitably be spent elsewhere.

Quote from: "Bestatte"Perhaps it's time to start denying posting privileges to people who abuse the generosity of the staff in providing this forum. Let people continue to read - there's still tons of very important and useful information here. But stop giving people permission to post, who have made it very clear that they have no desire or intention to be civil.

I'd like to see this happen. Asking them to actually be responsible and regulate themselves just doesn't seem to have worked. It would also cut down on the Staff having to continuously waste their time on trying to get them to respect the rules of the GDB in my opinion.

I don't see why people don't get, at least, temp. banned (from GDB, or even Arm itself) for being absolute mongs in the respective place.. It'd be a nice slap in the the face to the rude, inconsiderate trolls who thrive here.

Note: I've been guilty of some flaming in the past..but I actually stopped when people told me flaming was wrong.

I don't think board conduct should have -any- bearing on your game conduct whatsoever.

That happens and we'll lose plenty of good players, who may be rude on the board but as far as the game goes were good roleplayers and added alot to the game.

Quote from: "ashyom"Th GDB was created with the intent of providing a friendly place for players to meet and discuss the mud.

Having both absolute friendliness and open discussion is not possible. This is self-evident: where there is discussion, there is disagreement, and where there is disagreement, there is impoliteness.

What can be achieved is civilized discussion. That means that while people may be blunt, people do not resort to personal attacks and constructive discussion prevails. Friendly discussion does not equal constructive discussion.

Unfortunately, some people are very easily offended and insulted, and they may be unwittingly or wittingly drawn into heated debates and feel flamed as a result.

QuoteWe set forth the rules, and we expect everyone to follow them.  Most do.  A few don't.  These few are the one who are spoiling it for the rest of us.

Of course, but if You set friendliness to be an absolute rule, and begin to enforce it with bans and such, I'm pretty sure constructive discussion will suffer, too. And constructive discussion is what I like to think this Board is for, above everything else.

QuoteA couple of the staff have posted already that says basically same thing I have in this thread (and a number of previous ones).  I guess we're at the breaking point, and we're ready to say, hell with it.

What is this "breaking point" you talk about?

*grabs the steering wheel and violently jerks the discussion back onto the topic*

I've been thinking about this for a little while now and I've finally come up with a real dislike for Arm(other than whiney posters)...

And that is simply: I'm SO addicted to it.

Why do I loathe loving it so much? Because everytime I type score on a character and see: You have been playing for 30 days and 6 hours or something similar... I think... HOLY SHIT, that's an ENTIRE MONTH... it's as though I sat in front of the computer for 30 days straight, 24 hours a day... A month of my life gone. Good lord.

Was it the most constructive 30 days of my lifetime? Nah.. But I gotta say, it certainly was fun. :D Filled with moments so intense that the level of adrenaline in my system makes my hands shake and my body shiver. I count new grey hairs on my head I think there's a correlation between stress-levels and hair-greying... but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, I live an otherwise happy and normal existence in the real world so to satisfy the deviant parts of my personality I escape into the world of RP, and when it comes to RP Muds, Arm wins... Hands down. We all know that because we all play here, no matter how many breaks you take... you WILL return.

So, I hate it because I love it. Hell, maybe I love it because I hate it too.

Anyway, as far as constructive criticism about the game world goes:

-Close the Northern Noble Houses for awhile. Let the Templars and the merchant houses deal with politics up there and expand the Southern Noble Houses so that the ranks fill. They're the real Nobles anyway ;)

-Code wise... Nothing is perfect, Armageddon is constantly evolving and I'm loving what I see. When I have an issue or I find something that's a little off, I idea it or bug or typo it and feel confidant that it's on someone's todo list and will eventually get looked at. As far as I'm concerned though, it's badass.

Vox wrote:

Quote-Code wise... Nothing is perfect, Armageddon is constantly evolving and I'm loving what I see. When I have an issue or I find something that's a little off, I idea it or bug or typo it and feel confidant that it's on someone's todo list and will eventually get looked at. As far as I'm concerned though, it's badass.

What he said!  :)

In so far as the flaming.  Flames only survive when they are fed fuel.  Starve them of replies
and the flame will die down of it's own accord, leaving the flamer to look foolish.

--Cheers

Quote from: "EvilRoeSlade"If you like the way things are now, I understand that.  But I don't think that should preclude the possibility of trying out something that could be even better.

What if someone thinks the way things are now is better than what is suggested and that is why they like it?

Quote from: "spawnloser"What if someone thinks the way things are now is better than what is suggested and that is why they like it?

You don't know unless you try.

To address the concerns of the staff, which I just read.  I think you should start by taking a look at the people who are consistently rude and condenscending, and ensure that they never have an opportunity to be such again.

Quote from: "EvilRoeSlade"You don't know unless you try.

True, but if someone told you that they think doing heroin is better than not doing heroin, by that logic you should try it.  Not everything need be tried.  You should weigh the potential drawbacks and benefits and make a decision.  People voicing their concerns about potential drawbacks should not be dismissed because they are like the way it is and think the change would come with too many drawbacks.

Quote from: "spawnloser"True, but if someone told you that they think doing heroin is better than not doing heroin, by that logic you should try it.

Not to speak for ERS, but I think the point is that if an idea hasn't been tried, then you can't know for sure if it is a good idea or not.  People HAVE tried taking heroin and it was proven to be a bad idea.

Actually, CRW, that was my original point in my first post quoting him.  His words seemed to say that it was a good idea and that any nay-sayers were being chicken.  Granted, that may not have been his intent, but that is how it came across to me and at least one other person that I have spoken with...which is why I brought it up.

Look at the thread's title, look at its size. Damn ...

Quote from: "spawnloser"Actually, CRW, that was my original point in my first post quoting him.  His words seemed to say that it was a good idea and that any nay-sayers were being chicken.  Granted, that may not have been his intent, but that is how it came across to me and at least one other person that I have spoken with...which is why I brought it up.

Quote from: "EvilRoeSlade"If you like the way things are now, I understand that. But I don't think that should preclude the possibility of trying out something that could be even better.

And yet, just because somebody agrees with you, doesn't mean you aren't wrong.  I'm completely puzzled as to how you could have read what you did out of those two sentances.

I was just trying to be understanding and calm while still defending myself, since I do not appreciate that some people are painting me (and indirectly the players and staff who share my view) as a naysaying rabble-rouser who should leave the game instead of simply saying what's on his mind.  A prime example being what this poster said.

Quote from: "Marilla"Live and let live. People like different things, please, if you don't like something, play somewhere else. Let those, who enjoy the parts of the game you don't, have their fun instead of yelling 'Carthage must be destroyed' at every opportunity.

6 hour sandstorms  :evil:

I am suprised with all the many posts that are here, I am having trouble keeping up with all of them, but I would like to thank all those who have posted and those who will continue doing so.

I hate it when all the imm's are gone at the ATM and forget to start the game on Saturday!..

Me concur

I think you meant 'me conker', as in "one is a conker".

Thanks, I thought he was speaking spanish or something, like: Me lavo mis manos.

Quote
Another, much smaller problem I have, are the maps. I don't know why, but most of the zones just seem rather... dull, or repetative, to me. Disturbed me much more in the past because it was different than MUDs I used to play, but I'm much more comfortable with it now that I'm used to it.

Send in suggestions to how they'd be better.
I personally think they are quite neat, and scary. Never know what could be over that next cliff.

QuoteGetting knocked out using the way. Why would ANYONE want to sit there for 30 minutes after being knocked out??? So shoot me.......It's my fault for pushing the envelope, but I'd say that 20-30 minutes is highly excessive. I know things get better, but regardless......I think it takes away from the game...the RP and peoples play time.

Its not always 20-30 minutes. I've woken up after 1 minute. And yes it is your fault. No worse then killing someone and spending several real-life hours in jail. IC consequences for IC actions.

QuoteLive update. (If there's a time i want to MUD with bleary eyes it's saturday day!)

I agree and don't see why we couldn't do what other muds do to an extent and that is have a daily 'copy' of the mud created on another port, and then maybe during specified times during the day (to keep with the copies) we could build there and then save it, and it would go in on a reboot or something. Might seem weird but I know this is done elsewhere.

QuoteMy biggest problem is how it sometimes seems so empty outside and how in some zones you can wander for RL hours without seeing a single NPC. More variety in the monsters outside the gates, including smaller monsters to flesh out the ecosystem, would be nice. I can of course always submit them...bah wait till finals are over.

I've been working on this to an extent, feel free to mail in with where and with what you'd like to see places populated, and of course why.

QuoteI don't like how NPCs can see you in the middle of a sandstorm and shoot arrows at you, when you can't see, and it give you the message that it is too windy to use your bow, (but not too windy for the NPC)

Npcs also don't have command delay. Not sure why its not fixxed. Its an acknowledged problem.

Quote1. Players who don't seem to be able to see beyond the code.
Thankfully this is not a huge deal, but I've seen alot of discussion here that leads me to believe many players simply don't understand how powerful decent roleplay is at opening up their PC's horizons....regardless of hard-coded benefits or restrictions.

Yes, but this isn't really a problem with Arm, more the players, and not something we the staff can really fix or solve.

Quote2. Older, more experienced players who don't seem willing to help out the new folks by actually interacting with them on a regular basis.

Yes again. And to more of an extent that subtly use their OOC gained knowledge from past characters in discreet ways, like just knowing where a certain shop is and such and such, obviously distinguishing older characters from newer ones. Granted not ALL are like this, but its fun from a staff perspective to watch how many older players play as not knowing where (blank) is, and how many play that they do.

Quote3. And lastly, I have a problem with people who aren't willing to take responsibility for their lives. This goes WAY beyond ArmageddonMud. This seems to be an epidemic in Western culture...that people want the freedom to do as they will, but don't wanna pay the tab when it comes due. In Arm, that boils down to people who follow the code of good roleplay only so long as it is beneficial to their whims and the good fortune of their characters. It also involves those players who cry 'abuse!' when the actions of another PC, or staff, run contrary to what's 'good' for their own whim and their own PC's life, or their own individual sense of what is 'fair' gets violated. I'm sorry, but I've seen WAY too many people cry foul when things go against their PC and their desires, then turn around and do the EXACT SAME SHIT to someone else...or reverse in order of events...fuck someone over (perfectly ICly in the gameworld), then cry 'Abuse!' when it happens to their own pc. That shit just pisses me the hell off!  And please don't think I'm singling out players here. I think these rules and situations apply to anyone involved with ArmageddonMud.

Again a player problem. Sorry, can't really help here. Directly at least.

QuoteSpending a fistful of coins on a mug of ale, taking one drink, and then being forced to shell out another fistfull of coins for a mug of ale, only to take one drink and then have to shell out another fistful of coins for ONE FUCKING DRINK OF ALE.

Water is one of the scarcest resources in the world. It is rare and expensive. Also your reading too much into the code. Drink is a code command. There is no way it can equate to your exact visual representation of how much you drink when you think drink. This varies from person to person so the command is set up to allow you to emote around the actual command. Maybe downing the entire drink, or taking a few drinks, etc. Same with eatting. Hard to eat a slab of meat described as as long as my arm in two bites, but I manage.

Quote2) People who are striving to make changes to Arm (rp and documentation) that are intended for realism...there is a such thing as too much realism, that's when it ceases to be fantasy, which is part of the reason I don't like some of the other RPIs. So much realism they aren't fun to play anymore

I don't think were anywhere near this, and can't name off the top of my head even the last major coded addition that made Arm more real. Its just as balanced as when I first started playing.

Quote3) The severe lack of criminal groups in the game, such as raiders and the like...I'd much rather have fear of getting jumped by pc raiders while outside the walls than NPC beasts. I think the biggest contributer to the lack of these is the fact that one is not allowed to build them OOC with others first.

Toss in three new crime groups and you've milked anywhere up to 25 people from the regular population. Unfortunetely more people would rather have people near them they can interact with then having three or four bands of raiders spread out over the world in remote and safe locations. And yes building little clans OOCly is bad. People will pick and choose who is in their clan based on things maybe like class and race and probably inquire about past characters or any of a number of things involved in choosing good clanmates oocly.

QuoteBy that same token one could say that no families should be recruited for ooc either, because whose to say there is for certain perfect loyalty amongst the members of the family either?

Blood related families is alot different then a gang of people.

QuoteRandom stat rolls - I hate that I can invest time into writing up a character and covering every detail, just to find out my ranger can't use a bow because of random stat rolls.

Kinda sucky, but better then not seeing your stats at all I guess.
There may in the future be a way to favor a stat, but we'll see.

QuoteNPC player protectors - I don't like that special application characters are offered god-like NPC guards that are immune to corruption of any kind and set with scripts that provide them with reaction times above and beyond anything a PC could ever have. They want a guard? Make them hire a PC like the rest of us.

This is no different then NPC soldiers etc. Most guards are not god-like, they are guards, designed to protect. The world is much bigger then the players and it would be unrealistic to assume there would be no one available to guard noble-so-and-so in a house of a billion guards.

QuoteAll or nothing skinning - It kind of bugs me when someone can't get a few scraps of hide, a chunk of bone or a handful of raw meat when skinning a creature. There should be at least a random bare minimal you can get.

Skinning animals is very hard. I tried to skin a dear once and not only didn't know what meat was edible but ripped the fur and didn't want to dig around in the horrible bloody mess for bone. This is the same idealogy for characters. its really funny how someone can rip through four corpses in less then a minute and get every single skinnable item from them. Yes there should be a rare bare minimal item, and it should suck. Skinning represents knowledge of the beasts as well as skill as hacking them up.

QuoteShort description limit - Why not make it 38 or 40? I hate having the perfect short description, only to find its one letter over the limit.

It has to do with spam. The sdesc is reasonable, not every sdesc has to be long and detailed with elegant words and odd descriptors. As much as people make fun of 'the tall muscular man' its a great sdesc. A little bland, but I'd take 100 of them over 2 'the hirsute, dichromatic skinned, sinuously virridescent tressed woman'

QuoteUnarmed code - I just don't like the massive negatives that come with it, or the superior to bludgeoning weapons stun damage it does.

Your not a pro boxer, five or six square hits directly to the face WILL knock you out.

QuoteMounted combat - Should happen more often but doesn't, because its more or less suicidal unless you severely out class the other guy in combat skills.

Mounts are not horses, they are slow lumbering beasts for the most part, and two people mounted fighting would look silly and stupid. All mounted combat is illogical, why fight someone atop a horse with a chance of falling or being knocked off. People fought on horseback for the mounted, attack-down advantage. This is being consdired apparently or the concepts of expert riders fighting well and things like the charge skill would not even have been considered.

QuoteClans - Most of the clans in-game cater to people who want to play politics or be on the upper crust. What about those of us who want to play some gritty commoner with commoner issues?

There are not enough of you. And a commoner of that description wouldn't be in a clan.

QuoteGreater access to the games item database - Much of the games items aren't available unless someone kills an NPC to get them in-game, because NPC merchants have set stock items and PC merchants peddle the same stuff over and over again. Let's see NPCs spawning some random items in shops after weekly down time - doesn't have to be expensive and generic bad-ass stuff, just some more beat up leathers and common clothes, obsidian knives and bone maces, let people dress more unique.

That doesn't nescessarily help. Most shops are clan-owned and likely have secret or elaborate methods to creating their items that you'd not be able to figure out eitherway. Feel free to write up and submit shops you feel are needed.

QuoteThe Way - it has far too much power in-game in an OOC and IC context. We would have a lot more action if people had to give reports in person, rather then over the way, or if you had to hire a messenger to pass information along to someone in another town. Imagine the spy vs spy stuff that could happen? It'd be great.

That is true to an extent, but everything would be slowed down. Like it or not there are not enough pcs to be messangers for everyone who needs to talk to someone else. And no one wants to be completely shut off.

QuoteThe lack of crime - it is incredibly difficult to play a long-term and successful criminal in Armageddon. I want to see more spice smugglers, more raiders, more black markets, more extortion, more mafia-style groups forming and warring with each other. Right now there are severe coded road blocks to this. The criminal code could do to be more lax to represent the severe corruption among the centers of civilization, as well as foster more criminal elements then pickpockets and chair-stealing burglars

Good spice smugglers are not seen, good raiders are not talked about, good black markets are not well known, extortion would be pointless if everyone knew, there are plenty of mafia-style groups. And the civilization is not exteremly corrupt, its more indviduals in positions of power. Bribery only works if you have someone to bribe. Most soldiers would likely do their job and get paid for it then to possibly be killed by their templar for taking a bribe that wouldn't be worth the cost of just doing their job.

QuoteRed Storm - I like Red Storm and its theme, but I don't like the situation it seems to be in. It needs more stuff, something to draw at least a small but consistent player base. Crafting supplies and a decent chance for criminals (not raiders, but thieves and the like) would go a long way in making it more attractive to players.

This has already been worked on, with substantial results. Take a look around Red Storm more, not just the same old spots.

QuoteGlobal politics - I want to see more strife between global factions, such as Tuluk and Allanak. There isn't a lot of that happening that everyone can appreciate, like trade wars and sabotage and generally offensive terrorism, like you would expect between two opposing city-states. The fact Allanak didn't engage in some revenge of biblical proportions for the Academy incident and the general humiliation of defeat doesn't strike me as making a whole lot of sense. Shouldn't these nobles be spending LESS time meddling in commoners lives and MORE time opening various cans of whup-ass and whup-ass substitutes on their kings enemies

Hard to have trade wars when the merchant houses (intelligently) cater to both cities. Why would people want to fight each other when they are perfectly content in their own places. In the past it was logical, Tek wanted the north so he took it, and later lost it. Muk would probably not want the south (its a big desert), Tek probably has reasons for not attacking the north again (maybe he's building an army).  It also has to do with very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very small Templar/Militia clans on both sides. Its hard to plot great acts of war when you have no pcs or inactive ones.

QuoteIf there is one thing I really hate it's this: Shops closing at night. Grr!

I really don't see the point. Simulating the inconvenience of real life? How does making me wait 30 min to buy a backpack enhance the game to any extent? It's just wasting my time.

By the way people complain about this you'd think everyone was in a shop all the time. Do more shopping in bulk or prioritize, this is not a problem. Spend less time in shops!
Lets not split hairs over inconviences. If everything that inconvienced me was a problem I'd have several hundred.

QuoteAnd don't tell me it's more realistic. It would be realistic if the shopkeeper npc went home or something, but they just sit there.

Being worked on.

QuoteI don't like how some people think that every room in the city is full of VNPC's willing to turn you in every hour of every day.

If a reasonable alternative was presented it would probably be considered. Its very hard to code a 'circumstantial crime system' with a very large and shifting set of variables that would then have to be set or defined around each room, etc.

QuoteThe coded economy and the coded merchant clans. It'd be nice if there was some kind of economic system such that the argument 'You shouldn't sell so many of high price item A every week' would never come up. The merchant houses are pretty boring in my opinion. Now if they were all destroyed or one was and a bunch of pc run groups tried to fill the void, now that'd be interesting.

Some things will always be valuable in the short-lived world. And the buying 5 system stimulates an economic environment. PC merchant houses don't do too good because it takes alot of work to make things people will buy. Like if it takes a skilled killer, skinner, tanner, and leatherworker to make a backpack, its obviously going to be too expensive to sell if you have to adequetely pay those people. The solution is to buy at shops... hmm, if I can buy all my stuff at a shop why rely on others, why not just keep the profit for myself, etc. You get the picture

QuoteThe noble houses I've seen are pretty dull as well. I think if you closed down all the noble houses, they wouldn't be missed by me anyway.

Fale was closed! Woohoo

Quote
Karma. Its a good idea in theory. But so is communism.

If you can present a better way of keeping highly secretive, trust-heavy roles in the hands of the trusted feel free to suggest it.

QuoteLack of conflict. How can I say this after recent events? Well mostly it seemed the conflict was just a very few very large events. There wasn't a long period of time where mantis scoured the entire north road, making travel impossible. It also seems the merchant houses and others have this whole 'let us join together to face our common enemy' mentality that I hope goes away quick.

Conflict is neither quick or well-defined. Just because there arn't people murdering each other in front of you at every junction does not mean there isn't conflict. What point would there be to play if your character was murdered or robbed blind every other tuesday. The game is slow (as many notice) allow time to develop conflict as well as the characters behind them. Want super quick and apparent conflict go play a hack and slash.

QuoteLack of ANSI colour

I think its more that the creators of the game did not like color. I doubt they'd go through the trouble to create a very color-cohesive world just to turn it off.  And as any mud-savvy person knows a color scheme can drive more people away then a monochrome. There are ways to color your own world.

QuoteCommand delay which mimics a laggy connection

Hard to stimulate delay in another way.

QuoteHabitual disappearance of emails to and from the imms

Its more to do with how many emails immortals receive and people having problems with their emails and not knowing it. Its not an Arm exclusive occurrance. Out of like 5 emails I send I botch one or two addresses. Usually tranposing a letter or something. Luckily mine get bounced back to me, but not everyone does. And as you can see from the staff board many people put in wrong emails or have email issues. This has to do with the wide-sweeping community in different countries with varying email issues.
Yahoo is free and works well.

QuoteSlow reply speed to emails

Patience is a virtue. I try to respond to every email I receive. Not sure if this is the same for everyone. Also there is a syndrome known scientifically as "my issue is more important then anything else your doing" where people develop a concept like "appease my issue now, its more important and obviously deserves your full attention." the fact is this is a game and a job, and that many of us have real life jobs and other priorities and its hard to answer quickly and thourougly to 10-20 (or in the case of the Mud sometimes over 100) or so emails per session.

QuoteLow playerbase (outside peak hours) and the resulting difficulty in finding a merchant, a Nenuyki agent, etc

There are virtual agents of all houses. They are much bigger then their pc populations. If you have an urgent issue wish up or mail the mud and something can be arranged for you.

QuoteNo coded ability to leave messages which sometimes creates serious unrealistic communication problems between PCs

We could put something in for you to pay a guy to take messages, but the problem is people would not like to pay to leave a message and pay to hear them. There is no other realistic way for this to work, unless there was some well-to-do person with a hankering for taking messages from 100s of sweaty commoners.

QuoteLosing your link will often get your character killed or robbed

Same could be said of not losing your link.
The fact is that no-link protection IS and will forever be abused. Sorry, get a reliable ISP.

QuoteBlack-and-white criminal code

See above about devising a better solution.

QuoteThe alleged unfairness, favoritism and bias that arises from the Karma system

Stems from OOC communication. Stop communicating with other players OOCly about the players of the game and their characters and what karma they may or may not have.

QuoteThe web site looks like something straight from 1993 and probably doesn't help to bring new players

Personal problem, not a problem with the game.

QuoteGDB pollution where people cannot understand that comments like

Again not a problem with the game.




Disclaimer, may miss some here, skipping the several pages of arguing.

QuoteMy one and only pet peeve is that emotes are effected by movement and combat delay. I wish they weren't, but it's probably not very simple to fix.

I agree, but the way the code is it seems hard to avoid. And when everything becomes a 'system' like forage, craft, etc, it seems junky.

QuoteWhat I don't like about Arm is the GDB. It's 95% a bunch of people saying "No I said this," or "No I clearly said this and if you even read what I posted you would know," along with a whole bunch of page long posts with people quoting and requoting each other, quibbling over minutae of trivia. Half the time ya'll are actually agreeing with one another, you just don't like the choice of wording the other person used and in the end, you're bickering over nothing.

The GDB is not part of the game. If its "your only problem with the game" your confusing the game with the community, which should have its own thread honestly, because that seems to be the major problem with the game, the players. But of course the catch is that it would not be a game without them, and that "good players" is a subjective term.

QuoteI hate the drinking code. I think it sucks. I wish there was some way to fix it and make it only last for a few Ic hours, I should not be drunk three days later. What would be cool is if your PC drinks -a lot- They should loose a bit of stamina for a IC half day or so.. Becuase I am not ever drunk for very long after I stop drinking.. But I am certainly hung over for a while.

Build a tolerance for alcohol. Drink alot and you may notice not being drunk as long, or needing to drink more to get drunk. The code is a great thing.

QuoteI like the idea of mounted combat and wish it was coded more in favor of the rider. Why does the guy below get the advantage? Kanks are big and covered in chitin damit! And that guy's head is in perfect range for me to bowl it down with a morning star.

You can't ride when holding two weapons and its probably very hard as it is with one hand. Try riding a rhino with a very crude set of reins, only one handed while also trying to hit that person beside you. Combat is not stationary, there is at least minimal virtual movement unless otherwise implied with emoting. Kanks are not extraordinarily agile. The more agile the animal the better combat should be.

Quote4. I would like to see more crime and smaller gang like tension amongst the common population. I would like to see a more Rinthy like feel come out into the main populace, slum lords. Take a bit of power away from the noble houses. Life is too damn good for the PC's right now.

Hard to have slum lords when all property is owned by Nenyuk. The main populace is better then the Rinth.  Thus why there is a rinth and not just an entire city of scum. a good portion of the population are decent, God-fearing, law-abiding working class people. The average person is NOT a scummy, crime-ridden filth-bag willing to murder the next guy for his hat. The world is harsh, and people's tempers may be short, and drunken brawls may get a little heated, but it doesn't mean that crime is as common as sand and that everyone is killing each other.

QuoteSlightly more robust aliases. The ability to put in placeholders - so that I can 'alias feetdrag $1 (dragging his feet)', then type 'feetdrag west' and have it interpreted as the same as if I typed 'west (dragging his feet)'.

Get mushclient. I don't think I've ever used an alias beside CHL (change ldesc) in Arm, but in another HnS mud I play the mushclient alias system is glorious. It can do exactly what you said.... like the alias would be "feetdrag *" and expand in the code to:

%1 (dragging his feet)

And come off just as if you did the direction.

QuoteSo finding a niche was something I didn't like, but now I'm over it. And when I have to create a new character it won't be as bad.

Its called a learning curve, and most if not everything in life has one.

Quote6 hour sandstorms

Try a four day sandstorm.
Sand and wind = scary... be lucky its as light as it is now.

QuoteQuote:
2) People who are striving to make changes to Arm (rp and documentation) that are intended for realism...there is a such thing as too much realism, that's when it ceases to be fantasy, which is part of the reason I don't like some of the other RPIs. So much realism they aren't fun to play anymore

I don't think were anywhere near this, and can't name off the top of my head even the last major coded addition that made Arm more real. Its just as balanced as when I first started playing.

I'm just saying those that are pushing for such changes, I think it's fine at the moment.

QuoteQuote:
3) The severe lack of criminal groups in the game, such as raiders and the like...I'd much rather have fear of getting jumped by pc raiders while outside the walls than NPC beasts. I think the biggest contributer to the lack of these is the fact that one is not allowed to build them OOC with others first.


Toss in three new crime groups and you've milked anywhere up to 25 people from the regular population. Unfortunetely more people would rather have people near them they can interact with then having three or four bands of raiders spread out over the world in remote and safe locations. And yes building little clans OOCly is bad. People will pick and choose who is in their clan based on things maybe like class and race and probably inquire about past characters or any of a number of things involved in choosing good clanmates oocly.

Are you trying to say that pc raiders aren't going to interact with people about as often as they can?

People are needed for them to get by and do what they do.

Oops, that was me above.

QuoteMounts are not horses, they are slow lumbering beasts for the most part, and two people
mounted fighting would look silly and stupid. All mounted combat is illogical, why fight
someone atop a horse with a chance of falling or being knocked off. People fought on
horseback for the mounted, attack-down advantage. This is being consdired apparently or
the concepts of expert riders fighting well and things like the charge skill would not even
have been considered.

Not all mounts on Zalanthas are gigantic bugs. Some are much more prone to mounted combat.

QuoteGood spice smugglers are not seen, good raiders are not talked about, good black markets
are not well known, extortion would be pointless if everyone knew, there are plenty of
mafia-style groups. And the civilization is not exteremly corrupt, its more indviduals in
positions of power. Bribery only works if you have someone to bribe. Most soldiers
would likely do their job and get paid for it then to possibly be killed by their templar for
taking a bribe that wouldn't be worth the cost of just doing their job

Again, raiders. They may not be known as in people knowing their faces from afar, but they're name would be known. Unless you consider the Blackmoon Raiders a horrible raiding clan. I can only assume they were very well know and very revered. In fact, when you have a great name, you don't even need to fight to get what you want.

QuoteWant super quick and apparent conflict go play a hack and slash.

As a player, I would like to have a good pbase to rp with, lets not try and turn people away, shall we? Even know that which they seek is abundant and plenty in Armageddon.

I dont like how, to stay IC, one sometimes has to let the game drive me into situations that are not enjoyable OOCly at all. This is even worse if there are only very few roles a particular PC could fill, and for IC or OOC reasons, all of them are out of question. Makes you want to retire, or take a long break... not fun.

Thats about the only thing that really bothers me.

Quote from: "Seraphim"I dont like how, to stay IC, one sometimes has to let the game drive me into situations that are not enjoyable OOCly at all. This is even worse if there are only very few roles a particular PC could fill, and for IC or OOC reasons, all of them are out of question. Makes you want to retire, or take a long break... not fun.

Thats about the only thing that really bothers me.

Personally, I think you have to make the best of it.  This isn't to say I didn't have the same experience before, much to my heartbreak.

When Arm gives you giant scrab, make... giant scrabomade or something.

Right, it's 1:30 AM PST, and I'm babbling.  Just only pay attention to the first paragraph.

Way to go Gilvar.

On the note of saturday, I disagree. It's nice that we're forced to take a day off from arm once a week.  Grudging as it maybe.  I think it makes players apprectiate the game that much more the other six days of the week.  Also I think gradually staff might be less inclined to work on saturday if the game was up all day.  Sorry staff, I think it's just human nature, and that we'd see fewer mud updates.

On the ooc note I think it would be much worse if you didn't have to act icly and sometimes screw yourself.  Beside that most people wouldn't screw themselves, the ones who do anyway are the truely good rpers.  I remeber one time my char had to do something like that, who was being tortured at the time.  You wouldn't BELIEVE the ooc harassment I endured from other people in my clan at the time for it.  Heh, but I learned my lesson.  . . Just don't talk to people oocly.

Quote
WarriorPoet Wrote:
Spending a fistful of coins on a mug of ale, taking one drink, and then being forced to shell out another fistfull of coins for a mug of ale, only to take one drink and then have to shell out another fistful of coins for ONE FUCKING DRINK OF ALE.

I can buy a forty oz at the store downt he street for 2$, a mug of beer at the bar or a six pack from the grocer AND I can drink the shit all day long.

Yes, but in the post industrial nations of Earth, clean water is in fairly plentiful supply, as are the means of growing hops and barley, producing malt and all the other ingredients that go into a good ale.
Beer and ale is cheap here because the means of producing it are fairly cheap and plentiful.

In Zalanthas...the story is quite different.  Even food isn't in plentiful supply unless you have the coin to get it.  My current PC is employed and makes a fair amount of 'sid over a year.  But if he were to 'eat out' every meal at a tavern, he would be a broke muthafucka in no time.

Food products aren't cheap in Zalanthas because the means of producing them aren't cheap....and most of those means are owned by a powerful despot of some sort.

Quote from: "Zore"

Quote from: "Dead Newbie"Shiny advanced web pages often lead to shitty RP.

Oh gee... I've seen a lot of shitty RP on Arm, so simple web pages must lead to shitty RP, too.

Or maybe web page look has nothing to do with the RP the MUD contains.

I'm sure you would see a lot more good roleplay if you paid attention to the game more than 20% of the time you are logged in. And other players would be less frustrated and more willing to interact with you.

Wow - Aramaku inspired me to post something I don't like.

Now, we ALL have our days, hours, moments, when we don't feel like interacting but still wanna be logged in. We're all a bunch of freaks that way, right? Right. So okay - we find ourselves a nice quiet little corner of the game and idle for awhile, tab back and forth while reading the GDB, jack off to pr0n, whatever - while still keeping an eye on the game screen "just in case." That's all kosher as far as I'm concerned.

But the players who are doing all that other stuff WHILE they are interacting with other people just make me wanna hurl - sharp objects in their direction. Especially when they're in a hunting party. I mean dood - we're out in the dangerous place with the nasty critters, and you don't even have your weapon out. PAY ATTENTION if you're gonna be involved in stuff. Otherwise, bow out gracefully, come up with an excuse to go somewhere else. I, for one, -promise- I won't be upset if you'd rather watch TV or have supper or get laid during our hunting expedition. Just don't do it WHILE you're hunting, please? I can barely cover my own ass, I'm not all that intersted in trying to cover yours too simply because you're not watching the screen.

Well that's my rant about something I don't like about Arm. Some of the lack of interaction on behalf of the players, during interactive moments.

Again - I am ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NOT referring to people who aren't involved in something at the moment. I am ONLY referring to people who are, and choose to chat in IRC or post on the GDB or whatever the hell else they're doing instead of -being- their interactive selves with the characters they're supposedly interacting with.

That reminds me of a time where I lost my 50+ days old desert elf a few years ago, because the one who I was with felt like watching TV instead of keeping an eye on my poor elf while he was taking on an army of beasties by himself.. Let's just say that I'll never forget that person, my d-elf and the way they both died (At least to make it fair, she also lost her many many days old ranger too ;).

Yes, after all these years I still remember you and that death, and you know who you are.. *g*

So idling and not paying attention while in a RP situation -is- Eevile.

Quote from: "Gesht"As for "pull reins", I think that was disbanded to make way for the CHARGE skill.

No, the exact message you get is:

"Temporarily unavailable due to abuse."

(If you try it on a mount that never had the ability you get a message about not having that weapon.)

"Temporarily unavailable" implies it is comming back some day, I live in hope.  The first time I saw the awful message I wrote the mud, here is an exerpt from the return email:

QuoteTemporarily meaning until someone has time to fix it.  This is, obviously, a very low priority item compared to bugs that crash the mud, corrupt pfiles, and hinder the boot process.

Regards,
-the Shade of Nessalin

Charge does not make this redundant.  Charge relies mostly on being a skilled rider, while in contrast pull reins relies mostly on having a trained combat mount.  It wasn't something pack animals (kanks) could do, so it gave people interested in mounted combat a reason to buy a combat mount.  
Having everyone from the highest noble, to the lowest mercenary, to independant merchants, smugglers and grebbers all riding the Zalanthan equivilent of pack mules really bugs me.  (No pun intended.)  But in the end most people go for the animal with the most coded advantages.  Trained gwoshis, Ratlons, Sunbacks, warbeetles and maybe even erdlus should be prefered by fighter-types, but everybody rides kanks because kanks will carry you the farthest without needing a rest.  Allowing combat trained animals to do something helpful in combat makes sense, and encourages people to choose combat mounts for combat activities.  I don't think combat mounts should actually join in as a full fleged combatent, because riding a creature that is fighting for it's life would be hard, but they can do  something.  

Charge is great for large mounts, but it doesn't make much sense to try to get your erdlu or sunback to trample a wild inix.  But erdlus and sunbacks are fierce fighters, and could occasionally be encouraged to take a swipe or peck at your enemies.  


AC