Armageddon General Discussion Board

Is the practice of gating extended subguilds, for example, behind karma a good idea or a harmful one? Is karma becoming a way for privileged people to play privileged characters, rather than a means to restrict roles that require a certain amount of responsibility/RP chops/trust to players who have shown themselves capable? Or has karma always been the former, more or less?

Discuss.

My two cents:

I agree with the sentiment that making extended subguilds karma-restricted is unnecessary and possibly a deterrent to new players. Players with karma will likely choose nothing but extended subguilds, so having a regular subguild functions as an unnecessary handicap for low or no-karma players. With magick it makes sense to an extent, because you don't want people who haven't learned to RP running around with pew pew magick, and some of these combinations require a measure of staff trust. But mundane extended subguilds? Nah.

My vote is to get rid of the handicap and make the extended subguilds regular subguilds. If staff fear that this will lead to too many submitted mastercrafts when everyone and their dog can mastercraft, then maybe make the mastercrafting subguilds the one exception, or find some other way to limit the barrage of mastercrafts.

I just don't think that tying extended subguilds to karma does much else besides punish newbies and those who otherwise haven't managed to accrue karma. And that doesn't sit right.

Funnily enough, I advocated tying extended subguilds to the karma system. I think Nyr even responded to my comment by saying they'd look into doing that, so perhaps I'm even partially to blame (or to thank, depending on your point of view) for the current situation. But for the most part, I suggested this idea because I was tired of blowing all my special applications on extended subguilds. After having more time to think about it, I actually think it would be better for the game (if more tedious for me) if we went back to the old spec-app-only system (although obviously I've already explained my first choice.) The last thing we want to be doing is discouraging new players.

While I generally like the changes so far, I have to agree that all the changes are putting a lot more emphasis on the karma system. A system which is still considered biased, flawed and unfair by many. Despite its guidelines, the way karma is calculated is still really up to interpretation by whoever is reviewing you.


The majority of people don't get beyond two or three karma, even if they never play anything remotely twinky or threatening. This idea is probably not going to be popular but karma should be more of an automated process. After certain point of time played(we are talking months if not a year here) a player should probably be rewarded karma assuming there are no bad notes or concerns to their records. This should continue to a specific limit.  I feel that karma limit should be 5, forcing anything above 5 karma to be special app only. That said, ideally I feel the limit should be four karma but that is with the assumption players will be able to special app things four level above their karma instead of three.


Until the system is changed to a more automated process, the idea that staff rewards only people they like, their friends or just the people they are dating with karma is unfortunately a fair criticism.  :-[

I'd be 100% okay with extended subs becoming normal subs. That sort of makes all the work done to subguilds pointless though. I think Karma works okay when players know about it and know the best way to get it is to communicate with staff with the request tool via karma reviews and updates. I never found not having karma to be an issue when I was new to the game. 

I don't think there should be any hard limits on special apps though, I don't think there's that much nuance when it comes to trusting a player to play a role correctly. Spec apps should not tie in with karma. So if it's a good concept and there aren't too many IG already, you should be able to play a Mul or psion or whatever. Someone wants to play a warrior/assassin double full guild with half their skills bumped, go for it. They'll both be dead ina month anyhow ;).

Quote from: Dresan on March 26, 2016, 07:56:18 PM
While I generally like the changes so far, I have to agree that all the changes are putting a lot more emphasis on the karma system. A system which is still considered biased, flawed and unfair by many. Despite its guidelines, the way karma is calculated is still really up to interpretation by whoever is reviewing you.

Several members of the staff team pitch in to review players in many cases. It is not an autocratic process, although that also makes it slow.

Quote
The majority of people don't get beyond two or three karma, even if they never play anything remotely twinky or threatening. This idea is probably not going to be popular but karma should be more of an automated process. After certain point of time played(we are talking months if not a year here) a player should probably be rewarded karma assuming there are no bad notes or concerns to their records. This should continue to a specific limit.  I feel that karma limit should be 5, forcing anything above 5 karma to be special app only. That said, ideally I feel the limit should be four karma but that is with the assumption players will be able to special app things four level above their karma instead of three.

Typically the cut-off is 4-5 karma before it starts to get harder to earn karma. I would say most players have the potential to reach it, however at the moment that requires them to put in regular karma reviews to kind of remind us to review them.

Quote
Until the system is changed to a more automated process, the idea that staff rewards only people they like, their friends or just the people they are dating with karma is unfortunately a fair criticism.  :-[

It used to be a fair criticism, for sure. Nowadays many players earn their first karma for longevity within six months, and new active players generally get up to two karma within a year. I see a lot of players who have earned their karma before the current review process, often 7-10+ years ago, and in many cases it is vague as to how they got that karma at best. I feel there are many low-karma players who deserve to be notched up and a few high-karma players that deserve, at the least, a review under the current guidelines. The question really becomes how staff can do this in a way that is fair for everyone.

I encourage anyone who is concerned about their karma level to put in a review and ask for feedback. That said, if you don't trust in the process enough to do even that then it's difficult to help.

Coat of Arms amd Vwests both had well-written posts on karma, its purpose, and how recent changes to Guilds and Subguilds have impacted the purpose of karma in their eyes.

Coat of Arms
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50895.msg936436.html#msg936436

Vwest
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50895.msg936490.html#msg936490

Here's my gut reaction to the first read-throughs

Quote
The karma discussion is an interesting one but probably deserving of its own thread. For what it's worth, I've found respecting the virtual world to be the best path to karma. Assuming that the one karma point I got for leadership right after leading my clan into a spider nest was more of a joke than anything :P

A theme I see in both Vwest and Coat of Arms' views is that karma is conferring mechanical advantages on some players over others. To that I agree. A Mundane Guild with Magickal Subguild is probably codedly "Better" and stronger than a straight mundane. I think the Extended Subguilds are more of what a subguild should be than the old ones. For the extended mundane ones, I don't see much of a threat to giving 0 karma players them. I would just make them the new basic subguilds and leave karma subguilds to magick.

I think both Coat and Vwest are selling short the non-coded challenges that magicker characters (and to a degree other karma-restricted characters) face: a hostile virtual environment that they are always going to be outcast from. Karma isn't just a measure of how much staff trust you to wield coded power - it's a measure of how much you play to the virtual world and inhabit a realistic space in it. It's your responsibility with the documentation and the roleplay, as well as the code. There's an interchange between the two, but to think "Magickers have no (coded) weaknesses now because they have a Guild to ride on" does suggest a lack of understanding of magick's place in the world - one largely of being hated, feared, and excluded. If you don't uphold these non-coded disadvantages, if you just accept and play magickers, or master-riding reliable breeds, or smart-half giants, or anything else that gives a coded advantage simply because it's a coded advantage to do so - then I think you're inadvertently creating the nightmare world where Karma Players get to lord it over non-karma players with our super-powered no-downside races and subguilds.

The best means to maintain a game where Karma means something - and, in my opinion, the best way to earn karma - is to respect the documentation, play to the documentation, and try not to think of the game as simply coded advantages and disadvantages.

Yes karma does fulfill its intended purpose. It is still used to limit very powerful and RP intensive roles to players who are trustworthy and capable. Yet it is also being used for some things for which I do not think it is needed.

Contrary to some posts in other threads, I do not believe that karma is given out to "privileged players" that "staff like", whatever that means. There are some guidelines for karma and I believe staff do try to apply them across the board. However, applying those guidelines is still very subjective, and that makes the system function in an illogical way at times, which can appear biased.

Staff did well to de-couple karma from account notes requests.  That was the first step . The second one is to set the karma system to milestones in terms of time played, IC, yet leaving room for direct action from staff IF THE PLAYER IS SEEN TO BEING DOING THINGS WHICH BREAK DOCUMENTATION AND OR RULES, OR IS SIMPLY IDLING OR OBVIOULSY NOT PUTING MUCH INTO THEIR RP.

Staff can then send the player a mail to tell them where they need to improve if they want to make karma at their next milestone.  Flag the account and watch them.  Yet for other players who -try- to RP well, respect docs etc, the progression would be automatic. No need for any subjective milestones. Play regularly, play by the rules, make an effort at rp and progress with karma.

Now, as to the question of using Karma for extended subguild applications.  If karma is about trust then I do not know why certain ext subguilds are karma dependent.  If as a new -zero- karma player I am encouraged to play a merchant who can master craft, then I do not see why I need karma to play a human ranger who can master craft a sword. Certain ext subguilds do require some trust however and therefore should be karma dependent.

Now, having said that, if we make many of the existing ext subguilds karma dependent then many of the regular sub guilds would go into the bin. Who would play them? However if karma were tied to time played and some ext subguilds set at lower CGP costs, it would provide goals for new players and encourage some retention.

Also, change the name completely. Just use CGP. Get rid of the name karma.

And finally..with the fact that there are now gicker subguilds...there should also be gicker EXTENDED SUBGUILDS.......YES!

If the difference between advanced and master wasn't so huge, then I doubt it would be a problem with extended subguilds costing CGP.
I've never mastercrafted an item and probably never will. But, I love mastercraft because you hardly ever fail.

Maybe I posted this years ago because it is a sore point, but I kept track on one character and with 2 tools, advanced arrowmaking he was hitting 60% success on making arrows.
You figure the time to get branches around Tuluk, take them to Nak, cut branches into shafts, find shards (fortunately they don't break if you fail) and buy feathers then sit in an apartment and actually craft the arrows and you can easily spend hours of play time just grebbing/making arrows. Then after all that trouble almost half the supplies are wasted.
I pick a mastercraft extended subguild for this reason only, no other.

To me it seems that advanced = D- and master = A++.  And everybody has knows about cooking.  ;)

I would like to see a system which gave a single karma to players who have played a certain number of hours on their account and who have been playing for two years. Any more karma after that would have to be reviewed. This is because I would prefer it if people got reviewed before being allowed to make warriors with krok skin because frankly that is going to be terrifying. Also, there's definitely a number of badly-played mages out there, and I've played my fair share, and that was in the three or four year range of my own time here.

It is my honest opinion that one needs to play bad mages/play badly around mages before they play any good ones, thus with the karma after two years thing (for touched options), but maybe I just played real badly or something.

(http://ec0c5a7f741a6f3bff65-dd07187202f57fa404a8f047da2bcff5.r85.cf1.rackcdn.com/images/4rdOcQasKart.878x0.Z-Z96KYq.jpg)

For those crawling masses hoping to get their plebeian hands on this scarcely doled marker of status; 8-Karma Master Race Jingo recommends putting in a karma review.

Thanks for the reply Negral. Frankly, I got some of my karma back in the days you still toggled the RP review flag in game. I remember I eventually got the message, in game too I believe, "Watched you a couple days. Your role-playing seems fine to me. You might want to avoid backstabbing animals though". This was over 10 years ago now I think so times have changed in more ways than one. Back then, you didn't ask for karma, if got noticed by someone in staff, they awarded you karma, the assumption being that you were RPing well.


That said, just a couple years ago I would have wouldn't have even posted in a discussion like this because karma was more or less useless, I didn't think that was a bad thing. I didn't like playing mages, I just liked playing mundanes. You didn't need karma if you just like playing mundanes, unfortunately these days however there are a lot of interesting options for mundanes using karma. I say unfortunately because again despite liking all the changes and having enough karma for a healthy selection already, I agree there is something about it all that still feels a bit unfair.

On top of that, there is also the other issue: why play a gladiator or thief when I can play aggressor or rogue with enough karma, I'm hoping some of the CGP ideas somehow still addresses this issue, where I might be tempted to pick a lower level sub-guiild and the be able to invest the rest of my karma in something else like skill bumps. I know there are still more changes coming so I'm eager to see how it all turns out. :)

QuoteI feel there are many low-karma players who deserve to be notched up and a few high-karma players that deserve, at the least, a review under the current guidelines. The question really becomes how staff can do this in a way that is fair for everyone.

Way back when, a common way to get karma was to submit a special app for something just above your karma level and play it out.  If you could do it in a way that seemed constructive, they'd sometimes let you keep it when you emailed in to say they hadn't removed that option yet.

You can do with mine what you want.  Just don't remove my ability to play mundanes or I'll cut you.

For as long as I have been playing... I'm ashamed to admit I don't really know -how- to earn karma...

If I understand it correctly. The finale of the whole karma/subguilds/CGP revamp is that karma will become spendable. So arguments that a high karma player has no reason 'not' to choose an extended subguild would not work. As in, an 8 karma player could make a chara with extended subguilds and a buncha skill bumps and then die within a day. Now he'll need to wait ... 8 months to regenerate 8 CGP? So only mundanes for him!  That's how I understood the CGP's "final" form to be. It's just taking its sweet time to get there.

Once that system is in place. Even those ranger/gicker lot will not be as common. Since their lifespans will be markedly shorter then mundanes ... I hope.

Quote from: Dar on March 27, 2016, 01:20:50 AM
If I understand it correctly. The finale of the whole karma/subguilds/CGP revamp is that karma will become spendable. So arguments that a high karma player has no reason 'not' to choose an extended subguild would not work. As in, an 8 karma player could make a chara with extended subguilds and a buncha skill bumps and then die within a day. Now he'll need to wait ... 8 months to regenerate 8 CGP? So only mundanes for him!  That's how I understood the CGP's "final" form to be. It's just taking its sweet time to get there.

Once that system is in place. Even those ranger/gicker lot will not be as common. Since their lifespans will be markedly shorter then mundanes ... I hope.

I hope to Krath not. I'd hate to put in a review, and be content to finally get just one or two karma then lose it because some idiot in an alleyway decided he wanted my merchant's counting rod more than I did and my life was in the way. Then I'm stuck trying to get back to where I can try again and probably never playing another city character.

I personally think the way the system is works out. You get most of the extended subguild stuff with the very basic core guilds, especially merchant. A lot of the extended subguilds are a way to be something like a merchant that can fight or a ranger that can eventually make that bow everyone keeps paying a three large for that you just can't save up for. It's a powerful thing, and if you ask me it's something that new players should hope for and not outright have handed to them. You shouldn't be able to be a completely self-supplied with mastercraft items ranger on your first character.

I'm not even sure anything I just said makes sense, but there's my two cents.

Quote from: Dar on March 27, 2016, 01:20:50 AM
If I understand it correctly. The finale of the whole karma/subguilds/CGP revamp is that karma will become spendable. So arguments that a high karma player has no reason 'not' to choose an extended subguild would not work. As in, an 8 karma player could make a chara with extended subguilds and a buncha skill bumps and then die within a day. Now he'll need to wait ... 8 months to regenerate 8 CGP? So only mundanes for him!  That's how I understood the CGP's "final" form to be. It's just taking its sweet time to get there.

Once that system is in place. Even those ranger/gicker lot will not be as common. Since their lifespans will be markedly shorter then mundanes ... I hope.

This doesn't address the central problem, which is that it doesn't make sense to combine mundane extended subguilds with the original karma structure, assuming the purpose of karma was about keeping difficult, powerful, abuse-able roles in the hands of trustworthy, proven players. Extended subguilds don't get anything main guilds don't; there's nothing difficult or powerful or abuse-able about them that doesn't exist in 0-karma main_guild form. For skill boosts it's even worse. That problem remains if you swap karma for CGP.

Frankly, I think it implies something very unpleasant: that karma was never about trust. It was never about preventing abuse. It was about rewarding (some) veterans with perks. And that proposed CGP system just makes that explicitly true.

I give staff the benefit doubt and think it's actually just a mistake of crossed wires. 1) We want to gate access to magickers, and 2) We want more varied and more powerful options for mundane characters. It's understandable that you'd try to take out two birds with one stone. It just doesn't work here.

The argument that karma essentially gives your character coded perks and flashy things isn't wrong, per se. If you take that to be the central issue, arguing that it isn't so sounds silly. What you'd want to instead look at is whether or not it's wrong to give some people access to characters that can shoot fireballs and fly around whilst keeping them shut off from others - especially when this measure is by its very nature added or subtracted in a subjective system.

I definitely think that all players should at least have the same mundane guild opportunities. Races and magick probably have to remain karma, but there I'd also recommend doing something that makes it so the new elementalists aren't just objectively superior to mundane characters. We've already lost what made elementalists unique and interesting, it would be nice to not also lose what previously made playing a mundane feel worthwhile and compelling.

Personally, I don't care about Karma. Likely because it never impacted me one way or the other, I suppose. I have 4, and I've been playing for something like 13-14 years. The last time I got a karma point was from Belenos, somewhere around 6 to 8 years ago?

Still played at least one of everything out there, including Psi/Sorc. But, 99% of my pcs have been and will continue to be mundane human merchant/ranger/warrior, with a basic subguild. I love the extended, I love the changes being made on mages, too. But, meh, just saying it doesn't much matter to me.

Quote from: hyzhenhok on March 27, 2016, 04:22:12 AM
... Frankly, I think it implies something very unpleasant: that karma was never about trust. It was never about preventing abuse. It was about rewarding (some) veterans with perks. And that proposed CGP system just makes that explicitly true. ...

I disagree.  It makes perfect sense to me why ESG are behind a karma wall:

Staff trust is required for more codedly powerful things.
More codedly powerful things are behind a karma wall.
Extended subguilds are more codedly powerful things.
Extended subguilds are behind a karma wall.

Quote from: ChibiTama on March 26, 2016, 11:28:40 PM
For as long as I have been playing... I'm ashamed to admit I don't really know -how- to earn karma...

You submit a Karma Review request in the Request Tool about once every six months. 

Staff discusses offline and voila.  Karma.  (Or not) Then just wait a bit and rinse wash repeat.

I always understood the skill bumps thing being granted by Karma. Those with high karma have probably played awhile. And by awhile I mean years. They've done the whole skill grinding thing and arent really all that excited about it. So when a character dies, the temptation exists to just go "fuck it" I best go see the sun IRL instead of starting anew with some new chara. Skill Bumps kind of alleviate this, by allowing a character start with greater skill levels, skipping some of the grind.  And the issue of trust is understandable as well. You dont want a griefer getting a bunch of griefing skills bumped up, just to quickly cause some chaos before he is deaded off.

To a much lesser degree, but still close enough, the extended subguilds fall into that category. By the time you hit your karma 3-4, you've probably played a few roles. You've explored all those different guilds and so on and so on. So here's something different to wet your beak in.

Personally. I do not mind having 'extra' options available to karma. In the end of things. Every mundane 0 karma guild can become powerful. And twinks do get lethal on a pretty steady basis. I still remember ... oooph <insert any other example of a guy who went out into the wilderness to skill up on npcs, only to do some dumb shit to players later, with no story, no explanation, and no point>. None of that is bannable offense. None of it is 'really' against the rules. But it's just dickish.

Setting aside the commonplace "mistrust" into staff judgements that's displayed so often on GDB. Having extra toys behind the karma barrier just to encourage better play in people is not such a bad thing. All of the extended sub guilds are available upon special application. And they're all within 1-3 karma level.

I think "submit a karma review" should be bolded and underlined on the karma help page. I'm from the bad old unregulated days wheye I once received a point for solo rping beating up my Kank when it wouldn't go anywhere for 20 tries in a row. There weren't really guidelines, but even then I got most of my karma for emailing in and asking.

I do like that the extended subguilds are behind a karma wall because I feel they actually are quite powerful. A warrior who can sneak up on you and initiate combat with a 60+ hp blow is scary, plain and simple. Frankly, I don't even like that they're no longer limited per year. Some folks will never app a regular subguilds again. (I know I sure wont.)

However I also like the idea that karma could be on a level schedule. Maybe 1 at 6 months, 2 at a year, 3 at to years assuming active playtimes and no bad notes, and the rest is up to merrit. It does seem ridiculous that people have played this game for years and years and have no karma. I'm sure for some people it's intentional, but I'm willing to bet most people were simply overlooked.

The fact still remains that one of the biggest issues with the current karma system is that normal sub-guilds become obsolete after a person gets a bit of karma.  With the introduction of both extended-sub guilds AND elemental sub-guilds it feels like it is this way.  It is hard to look at normal sub-guilds in the same way especially with such a variety of additional powerful sub-guilds to continually choose. With just extended sub-guilds, I kinda ignored it because Elemental guilds could still make use of these normal sub-guilds however that has changed.

This is almost a derail but I wonder its the the main guilds need to be trimmed down to their very core themes with no additional frills and whistles to allow everyone to be able to pick a regular sub-guild to balance them out. And then, if you have the karma you can pick one addition extended sub-guild on top of that as a bonus. This would probably close to the original Arm 2 plan where everyone would pick almost dual classes.

To give you an idea of what this might look like with just warrior, they would lose stuff like bandage, skin, there would be no ride or branching direction sense added like I was hoping. They would just have their core skills, which would then be complemented by a sub-guilds and the option to further boost that with an addition extended sub-guild if you have the karma. The current character creation would support this easily, just extended and magick-subguilds would be an addition choice after selecting a regular sub-guild.  

Quote from: Dresan on March 27, 2016, 01:55:58 PM
normal sub-guilds become obsolete after a person gets a bit of karma.

Except for linguist! I wish trusted karma-card carrying players could be trusted with more languages...

After the change there's actually 2-3 subguilds that I have considered over ext-subs.

I am still likely continue to pick mundane guilds/ext/subs after the magicker rework, though I might just try some of the new magicker extended subs out of sheer curiousity.  That isn't because of a lack of karma on my part, but because of my desire to play in roles that allow me more interaction with other players.  This issue is magnified for me due to being a mostly off-peak and sporadic player.

I don't see how mundane guilds are obsoleted in the game.  They might only be so if you consider them strictly by some sort of PK code ability.  You'd also have to leave out the fact that you can't craft any longer unless you're a merchant, and perhaps even more importantly, discard the consideration regarding the game world is still ostracizing your character as it would any other magicker.

I can understand this viewpoint.

But it's also helpful to remember that there are also people with karma who prefer to play mundane classes as a vast majority.
I don't have the data, but I know that I, personally, also choose normal subguilds fairly consistently as well.  I've had two extended subguild characters so far, and both were 'relatively' short-lived.

I do see some recent changes having a drastic impact on this particular concern, however, this is one of those areas where there is no logical recourse other than wait and see how this can be tweaked; after changes that are going into place right now, of course the whole Karma system will be a little...tilted...until such a time as everything falls into its place.

Quote from: valeria on March 27, 2016, 11:43:09 AM

Quote from: hyzhenhok on March 27, 2016, 04:22:12 AM
... Frankly, I think it implies something very unpleasant: that karma was never about trust. It was never about preventing abuse. It was about rewarding (some) veterans with perks. And that proposed CGP system just makes that explicitly true. ...

I disagree.  It makes perfect sense to me why ESG are behind a karma wall:

Staff trust is required for more codedly powerful things.
More codedly powerful things are behind a karma wall.
Extended subguilds are more codedly powerful things.
Extended subguilds are behind a karma wall.

Pretty dubious logic there. It takes an extremely fuzzy definition of "more powerful" to put extended subguilds in the same category as magickers and muls. It's very, very hard to see why slipknifes or protectors or master crafters are "more powerful" to the extent that they need to be out of the hands of new players.

Just to clarify I'm not saying mundane sub-guilds are obsolete, I still have a hard time choosing between protector on my ranger and slip-knife after the change. Instead what I'm saying is with just a bit of karma the 0 karma sub-guilds become more obsolete. The old karma system does not give me a reason to pick gladiator over the more powerful aggressor, and there is no reason why not to pick it or another equally powerful (and just plain fun) extended sub-guild every single time.

Again this is compounded by the fact that with a bit of karma there are so many additional powerful choices now with the elementalist change, even if people are just trying out due to curiosity. Again overall I still believe it is a good change, because even if people choose them, the do feel more like people first, and with full guilds have an easier time integrating with mundanes.

I suppose its just something to think about at this point, especially with the guild changes coming.

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,48860.0.html

Quote from: MeTekillot on March 27, 2016, 07:20:04 PM
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,48860.0.html

Remember when my posts were funny.

I'm logging out to go to subway now :/

Now I want a shitty subway BMT. Thanks.   :-\

Subway is the obsolete low-capped few-skills mundane guild of sandwich shops.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 27, 2016, 07:30:52 PM
Subway is the obsolete low-capped few-skills mundane guild of sandwich shops.

I don't have the karma for Quiznos.

Hey Rath, can you give me the point of Karma back that I lost so I can go to Potbelly's?

Quote from: Rathustra on March 27, 2016, 07:31:34 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 27, 2016, 07:30:52 PM
Subway is the obsolete low-capped few-skills mundane guild of sandwich shops.

I don't have the karma for Quiznos.

That's because Quiznos is magickal.

Quote from: Armaddict on March 27, 2016, 07:47:03 PM

Quote from: Rathustra on March 27, 2016, 07:31:34 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 27, 2016, 07:30:52 PM
Subway is the obsolete low-capped few-skills mundane guild of sandwich shops.

I don't have the karma for Quiznos.

That's because Quiznos is magickal.

Can't decide between aspect of salami and sandwich touched.

...please no touching salami.

"Salami touched" was going to be my next dwarf concept ...

I think a valid point is being made here, but I also feel for the staff who are sponging up criticism over a system that's a current work in progress.  These are exciting times to be playing.

My two cents are that it might make more sense if the subguilds that required karma were the ones whose implied backgrounds are specialized and require a matured understanding of the game world to depict.  So based on title alone (and the implied biography, not the skills), playing a "gladiator" requires more knowledge about the game than a newbie might possess -- but we'd expect them to do fine with a far more generic "thug" or "aggressor" background.  Same with "nomad", "linguist", "majordomo",  and "physician" -- roles that require knowledge of the RP elements of the languages, the nobility's relationship with a city, and our brand of primitive medicine - respectively.

wtf guys sandwiches are retconned

it's like nothing matters anymore

Quote from: Bogre on March 27, 2016, 08:58:55 PM
wtf guys sandwiches are retconned

it's like nothing matters anymore

yeah i quit

i mean i already quit but i super quit now

uninstalling armageddon

Quote from: Zoan on March 27, 2016, 09:05:06 PM

Quote from: Bogre on March 27, 2016, 08:58:55 PM
wtf guys sandwiches are retconned

it's like nothing matters anymore

yeah i quit

i mean i already quit but i super quit now

uninstalling armageddon

I canceled my subscription and filed chargebacks.

I'm still waiting for the DLC that was promised in the season pass I bought... I am feeling cheated!

Back on topic:

Karma for magick-subguilds: Makes lots of sense.
Karma for mundane extended subguilds: Makes less sense. The only issue, in my mind, is too many mastercrafts if the floodgates were opened. But then, what percentage of the active player base has access to ext crafting subguilds anyway? I'm guess it's a substantial percentage.

Quote from: Thunkkin on March 27, 2016, 09:26:51 PM
Back on topic:

Karma for magick-subguilds: Makes lots of sense.
Karma for mundane extended subguilds: Makes less sense. The only issue, in my mind, is too many mastercrafts if the floodgates were opened. But then, what percentage of the active player base has access to ext crafting subguilds anyway? I'm guess it's a substantial percentage.

I agree with this.  I get the need to vet the people throwing spells that can kill a 30 day warrior in one cast.

I don't get the need to stop people from being GOOD at shit (crafts/more skills than their guild gives).

Quote from: Thunkkin on March 27, 2016, 09:26:51 PM
Back on topic:

Karma for magick-subguilds: Makes lots of sense.
Karma for mundane extended subguilds: Makes less sense. The only issue, in my mind, is too many mastercrafts if the floodgates were opened. But then, what percentage of the active player base has access to ext crafting subguilds anyway? I'm guess it's a substantial percentage.

Too many mastercrafts?   As I mentioned in my earlier post, zero karma players are encouraged to play Merchants. Once skilled up, Merchants can mastercraft in numerous different crafting areas.

If as a new player staff trust me enough to let me mastercraft a sword as a Merchant, then I see no reason why they should not trust me to mastercraft a sword as a Ranger. 

Unless of course I am a touched Ranger, salami or otherwise.

Currently karma is being used for two things: Restricting access to some roles to only trusted players and as a perk. It is described as being used only for the former reason. That is not a bad thing, to use it for perks, yet I can see why there is a bit of confusion.

I'm curious now. How many more people would do mastercrafts if the floodgates were opened?

 

Quote from: Thunkkin on March 27, 2016, 09:26:51 PM
Back on topic:

Karma for magick-subguilds: Makes lots of sense.
Karma for mundane extended subguilds: Makes less sense. The only issue, in my mind, is too many mastercrafts if the floodgates were opened. But then, what percentage of the active player base has access to ext crafting subguilds anyway? I'm guess it's a substantial percentage.

I agree! Maybe ESGs should just be a once per month (or less) thing and leave it at that. If you want to play a PC with more potential, then keep your last PC alive long enough to do it. This is what we had when everyone was special apping them to go along with a mundane guild anyway.

Quote from: valeria on March 27, 2016, 11:43:09 AMI disagree.  It makes perfect sense to me why ESG are behind a karma wall:

Staff trust is required for more codedly powerful things.
More codedly powerful things are behind a karma wall.
Extended subguilds are more codedly powerful things.
Extended subguilds are behind a karma wall.

Playing a race that is literally stronger than any other person in the game, but also gullible and easily fooled? I can see how new players might have a hard time not being tempted to play their RL smarts in disadvantageous situations. Being able to cast a vast array of spells that from a wide variety of guilds while being hated by every living thing in the world? I can see how new players might need to be dissuaded from playing that. Playing a guild that lets you conjure water from nothing while still being hated for this curse? I can see new players not handling that well. Being able to do all the cool things that Drovians, Nilazi and Elkrosians got to do? Definitely see not wanting to put that in the hands of a 1 day newbie.

Being able to play a warrior who can master craft a new item of clothing if they avoid getting killed and spend a lot of RL time increasing their ability in that skill? Not buying it.

Some of the extended subguilds may be combinable with certain classes in a way that in the hands of an inexperienced player could disrupt the game for the larger player base. Maybe. This is not universally true for all the extended subguilds and is definitely not true for skill bumps (do skill bumps still require karma?). As it is, karma is being used to give experienced players who trend to long lived characters a coded advantage over newbies. This most definitely is not what karma was intended to do but what it has transformed into with the half-implemented GCP system.

It could be that once the full guild changes are introduced anyone will be able to choose the various extended subguilds. But that is not the situation today and so therefore at this time karma is currently not being used solely to keep potentially game destabilising characters or difficult to roleplay characters that veer off the standard norm for Armageddon out of the hands of new players.

Quote from: Dar on March 27, 2016, 01:27:14 PMThey've done the whole skill grinding thing and arent really all that excited about it. So when a character dies, the temptation exists to just go "fuck it" I best go see the sun IRL instead of starting anew with some new chara. Skill Bumps kind of alleviate this, by allowing a character start with greater skill levels, skipping some of the grind.

I am not aware of the purpose of karma being to allow veterans to "skip the boring parts". If this is it's official purpose then perhaps the karma page should be updated to reflect that? Personally, if anyone needs a skill bump it's not the veterans.

Quote from: Dar on March 27, 2016, 01:27:14 PMSetting aside the commonplace "mistrust" into staff judgements that's displayed so often on GDB.

I don't think observing that karma seems to have gained a new purpose it didn't always have is in any way displaying mistrust for staff.

Quote from: Dresan on March 27, 2016, 01:55:58 PM
The fact still remains that one of the biggest issues with the current karma system is that normal sub-guilds become obsolete after a person gets a bit of karma.

This will likely be rectified to a degree once the GCP gets introduced. It will have no affect on anyone who averages a character that lives longer then <insert period of time it takes for the GCP to renew>. But veterans don't always fit that category. Although I'd think they would typically fit it more than new players would.

Skill bumps can remain karma-based, nobody should really care about that. It's the fact that to anyone without karma, their characters can never become as good as those of someone with karma. The ability to get stuff like master shield use on a ranger, advanced scan on a warrior, etc. -- these are things that make a character noticeably better than those without. And yet it isn't something that feels like it should require the same amount of karma as playing an elementalist, because it's not destructive power or a difficult role to handle, it's just about the value of a character.

Eh, I have been around long enough at this point and played enough characters who "could" abuse the system and never did that if I haven't earned enough trust to have "all of the karma" by now, I never will.

I'm fine with that.

If I have to do more than I've already done to get it, then it's honestly a lot more effort than it is realistically even worth.

Moral to the story is if you feel you should have more karma, then submit a request for a karma review.

However, don't play to get karma because A) It will just make you an unhappy player, and B) If there was a secret to getting it everyone would already have it all.

The only player I ever knew OOC'ly who had "full karma" and showed me IRL as proof with me standing behind his computer received it in less than a RL year of play on a new account he created to "leave his past behind" on his other account.

Maybe that is the secret.

When I submitted a karma review and got bumped to 2 karma, I was given a pity bump based on longevity and told my account notes were too barren to justify further increases and I needed to get more attention from staff. I had been playing the game for years at this point. Some players don't have the playstyle or affinity for roles needed for rapid karma acquisition.

I think the system would be more fair if the system were biased in favor of giving veteran players increased access, unless there are strong s staff reasons to decline the increase, rather than the reverse that my experience implies is the rule. The standard of review should be "have you played any roles that would give us any insight to how trustworthy you are (basically, roles at or above your current karma limit)? Are there any player complaints and staff now indicating you have abused the game in those? If the answers to these equations are yes and no, presume the player can be trusted with 1 additional karma." You could still give accelerated karma to people who demonstrate their trustworthiness as in the current system, and a lot of the feelings of unfairness would be mitigated.

I see two possible systems:

1) A system based on staff noticing you, wanting to watch you, and giving you positive account notes. The staff can then review those notes and give you karma based on those notes. (Our current system.)

2) A system based on your longevity and a lack of recent negative account notes.

With the first system you are required to play in a way that makes staff watch you and take notice of you. You might be a great player who is completely trustworthy and who abuses NOTHING, but if you don't play in a way that makes staff want to watch you, they will NEVER KNOW, and you will not get karma for it.

With the second system you just have to play in a way that is fun for you and has drawn no negative ire from the staff. You don't have to be the type of player staff wants to watch play to get karma. You just have to be the type of player who doesn't do things to draw negative attention.


The current system dictates in a lot of ways that only certain types of players get karma. The ones who have played in a way that got attention that then garnered account notes or staff approval based on said attention.


The latter system would reward players for not fucking up.

"Hey, has this guy been around and playing regularly for 5+ RL years and not gotten any horrible account notes? Well, he isn't super enjoyable to watch and might not play in a way I like personally so that I do WANT to watch him....but he is obviously capable of playing for a long time and being trusted to not do things so bad he gets negative notes.".


The system we use now seems almost entirely geared towards rewarding only those players we have a personal reason to want to watch and review at length.

You might get a couple of "pity points" as someone called them previously, but you will never get high end karma for just being a good player who doesn't screw up and doesn't abuse the system. (Which should be the only thing that matters, but isn't.)

Good points, Dman. One should be considered capable of higher roles if you're acknowledging the world, not being a celebrity.

I know one surefire way to make sure it's transparent and evenly dealt with.  Though I know it will never happen.

Make Karma awards a part of the weekly update:

AccountName was awarded first Karma point for longevity.
AccountName was awarded fifth Karma for leadership.

This would, I think, make people more aware to the process and take away some of the mystery.  Plus the people who aren't getting it could reach out to those who are and learn from them, you know, let the Karma heavies lead by example.

Not to mention it would make the visibility so that any type of Favoritism would be easy to spot.  Keeping everyone honest.

(I am aware that staff would never do anything like this, this is a "it would be nice" post.)

Better idea.
We only show it when people lose karma or would.


"Jihelu would have lost karma but alas he is at zero, it would have been for shitmugging nobles again"

Yeah, staff won't do that, but if you think it'd be helpful, there's no rule against anyone here sharing what their karma level is, how long it took to earn it, and what it was awarded for.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 28, 2016, 04:06:29 PM
... This would, I think, make people more aware to the process and take away some of the mystery.  Plus the people who aren't getting it could reach out to those who are and learn from them, you know, let the Karma heavies lead by example. ...

In the interests of transparency, what I have:

(http://triciawarren.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Karma.png)

How I got there isn't rocket surgery.  It's basically the same advice I consistently give and that people give here:

I consistently submitted for account notes and karma reviews, even though I never really cared how much karma I have, since I don't really care for playing magickers.  The leadership and cultural understanding points, I got on sponsored roles.  But I actually enjoy playing leaders and sponsored roles so I've tended to gravitate toward those when I'm "free" anyway.

I've tried to consistently play my characters to the documentation.  I think, feel, write bios.  I note in reports when they're behaving against expectations or documentations and why.  I tell staff in advance what I'm planning and give them as much information as I possibly can.  That ties into...

I've try to give staff and other players the benefit of the doubt.  When I've failed and made a mess of things, I've apologized.  I haven't always been perfect.  I've gotten into arguments with staff, most recently a knock down/drag out fight in 2014 or 2015 with Talia about one of my sponsored roles, for which I submitted staff complaints that got resolved by Nyr.  When I calmed down and took a step back, it was clear that the situation was partially my fault, so I apologized and untwisted my panties.

I don't talk OOCly with other players the vast majority of the time.  I'm guilty slipping a little at some APMs, particularly when it comes to telling old character stories, but I don't seek out OOC information or spread it.  I don't make characters to play with other people.  To the contrary, I actively avoid playing with people when I know who they're playing because I don't want my like of them as people to bleed into how my characters react.

I've contributed countless hours to the game and I like helping out in any way I can.  I'm always there for typos, bug reports, website suggestions, helping (though the helper chat doesn't work for me any more because of rural internet reasons, I still answer emails), etc.  But I've never been on staff and I never will apply because the mystery of the game is one of the main things I love about Armageddon, and I know that having to deal with you shits would scar me.

Anyway, I'm happy to answer any more questions if you want to reach out.

Added 1 karma, making 1 total, for happy 1 year anniversary
(almost) -  5/24/07.
Set karma to 2, Been a year, no bad notes, lets see what
they do. -  6/30/08.
Added 1 karma, making 3 total, for I'm impressed with his
grasp of and performance with a Jihaen/northern templar -  5/21/10.
Set karma
to 2, Rebelled from the clan and then suicided his leader PC because he didn't
want to wait for storage. -  9/06/11.
Set karma to 1, Docking 1 point for
active involvement on jcarter forums.  He has agreed to stop posting there. 
This can be regained in 6 months provided there are no other issues. - 
5/30/13.

In the interest of transparency. Been playing since 2004-2005ish. The suicide TOTALLY deserved a lack of karma, I got drunk and didn't want to wait a week+ because the only staff capable of handling the request was on vacation.

I asked for these notes in 2014. You'll note I had no other issues, and no "regained" karma.

I suppose asking for more karma every 6 months is how you gotta do it.

I read the above, felt encouraged, and submitted a karma review request.

Set karma to 1, see how he does with it - 1/02/05.
Set karma to 2, Going back and forth on this b/c of the recent negative note, (7/6/05) but decided to go ahead with it. - 8/12/05.
Set karma to 0, SEems like he's been doing ok for a little while. - 8/02/06.  ( Whaaaa ??? )
Set karma to 3, Seems like he's been doing ok for a little while. - 8/02/06.  ( Go home staff, you drunk. )
Set karma to 4, Based on what I saw with Tekri, I trust this player and think he can bring a lot to the role. - 4/05/07.
Set karma to 5, Good play with Keoni - 8/15/09.
Set karma to 6, to match assessment - 9/03/12.
Set karma to 7, Assessed at 1x logenvity, 2x rp, 1x communication, 1x racial/cultural, 1x magick, 1x contributions. - 3/10/15.


Most of this was from before they had a system to do their karma reviews. From what I recall it kind of went like this:
1 & 2 - I got by sending in an email basically saying "Hey guys, I think I'm doing good. Can I have karma to try something new?"  I don't think they had karma reviews yet. Guess I was ahead of the game?
3 - I put in a Special app for a HG and they never yanked the karma back. Probably should've because I vaguely recall mudsexing an elf or something. What else is a 16 year old going to do with a baseball bat sized dick?
4 - I played a 13 year old warrior in the AOD with pitiful stats. I guess staff took pity on me? But it was an active character with constant communication.
5 - Keoni sucked. He was probably one of my most regretted characters, but whateves.
6 - I think this must have been from when the review system was first put in place.
7 - I requested a karma review and I think they went back over my notes and compiled this from the comments.

I don't agree with the sentiment that hawking silk pants is a requirement for karma. I've never applied for a sponsored role in my life (with the exception of the gith role call, which I didn't get) and never played a clanned character past like the private/trooper/cadet level. Also, I probably only put in reports for like 1 in 10 of my characters (the other 9 don't do anything noteworthy, really). I don't think I'm what most people expect from a high-karma player. (Maybe that's a flaw of the system.)

I really do think that the key is communication with the staff. If you're new and you've played long enough to get a grasp on the world, then say so in a request. If you think something you did deserves consideration, plead your case. You can do all the nuanced and flowery RP you want, but at the end of the day there's like 200 of us and a dozen of them, so staff probably isn't going to see it unless you show it to them. I've seen a lot of players complain that staff is limiting them or telling them how to play their character. I don't believe that staff has the right to tell you how your character would behave in a given situation (within reason), but when I see stuff like this I tend to think that it's a failure to communicate.

So for instance, I played a HG once who would try to teach his own philosophy to others and counter their logic when they tried to change his mind. He was never successfully tricked into doing something he didn't want to do, or hurting / helping someone he otherwise would not have. (Not that he couldn't be, just that nobody ever figured out how.) Looking at his behavior a scene at a time, he would probably seem like a horrible HG. But I did have a strong concept and reasons, and I explained them to the staff in a couple character reports. And so I was able to play an anti-docs HG who netted this account note (my most prized staff kudos):
Shlom was one of the best-played HGs I've ever seen, and an excellent mage as well. Awesome reporting, awesome RP. - 8/19/12

It should also be noted (hopefully this is encouraging) that not everyone is so far ahead of newer people in karma.

I only have 4.  So don't assume that everyone talking about it are people who have already hit the max and are trying to keep you from getting there.

I have 5 karma. 1x longevity, 2x RP, 1x magick, 1x communication. Last time I checked my account notes were pretty sparse so there isn't much to say on that front. There are probably more now; I'm afraid to look.

I got my first point for putting on my tryhard pants with my first PC. I guess staff noticed that this newbie was really doing her damndest to RP. I think I may have also been playing in the same clan as a staff avatar, which probably helped with the getting noticed part. So my first point was in RP, not longevity.

Eventually I spec-apped an unmanifested Vivaduan in Luir's. I had him vomit water everywhere while no PCs were around, and put up a rumor on the Storm's End tavern board. I got noticed for this, I guess, and Morgenes awarded me 2 karma points, one for longevity, I suppose, and the other a magick RP point. I was at 3 for a long time as I played off and on.

When I finally bucked up and asked for my account notes for the first time (this was right before karma review got separated from account notes requests) they went ahead and set my karma to 4, my second RP point. Adhira mentioned that they wanted to see how I did in my sponsored role, and if I was good about regularly keeping staff informed I could earn a point for communication. When I stored/killed off my sponsored role, I put in a karma review request (they were now separate) and asked for that karma point, citing examples about how I worked hard to be communicative and to work with staff, and it was awarded.

I was told that the 6th point typically takes a long time to earn and I'd have to learn more about the world and such before being awarded it, so I haven't put in another karma review request since then. Maybe after another year or so. I don't want to seem like I'm impatient after they specifically told me it'd be a while.

A lot of people say they don't care about karma. I myself do care, probably more than I should. I think it's because I'm insecure and always feel like I'm doing something wrong, and getting recognition from staff makes me actually feel good about my play for once. I probably don't deserve the 5 I have as much as a lot of people who are lower karma, but I'm still proud of the work that I put in.

Whenever I got karma, it seems like I did something to call attention to myself and to my play. I play a lot of short-lived nobodies, have only played one true leader ever, and am a serial storer, so it's not like I'm making a huge splash, but in some way or another I often seem to make myself known to staff, if hardly ever to other players.

I admit, I'm leery of announcing how much karma I've gotten, but since everyone seems to be handling it well and offering encouraging advice...

I have 7 karma, gained over..14..15 years?  The vast majority of mine was earned long before the current karma evaluation went in and I'm not too sure what triggered the earliest awards beyond "played for a while, hasn't broken anything, +1 karma."

I can say that one or two of my points were awarded for special apping a guild that was above my current level and working to play it to how I thought the rules and game world would have it be played and then Staff at the time let me keep it as I'd proven I wasn't going to abuse the position, power or IG realities.

That's not to say I didn't/don't make mistakes or have run counter to the "niceties" of Zalanthan society.  I'm by far not a perfect player, my character reports are spotty in frequency and I feel incredibly rusty after my long break, but to everyone who may be feeling discouraged, hang in there.  The methods for gaining Karma now-a-days is, IMO, a superior method to what it was when I first started playing.  At the very least, it's more consistent.

Request karma reviews to get Staff attention and just keep trying your best and if your "best" doesn't seem to be getting you anywhere, go back through the rules, FAQs and whatnot.  I've had to adjust my own ideas of what is "best" to better fit the reality of the game world and I think it's made me a stronger player in the end.  Communication with Staff is key and, dare-I-say-it, putting your own ideas of what is right/wrong/owed aside and being willing to see someone else's point of view and how you just might not be in the "right."

Edit: I just went back and looked through my account requests.  Apparently, I haven't requested my account notes since 2009...I'm a little nervous about what they may say, now.

QuoteSet karma to 2 -  9/03/07.
Set karma to 1 - 
9/03/07.
Set karma to 2, seems about due -  4/23/08.
Set karma to 1, Due to
botched special role w/ Ueka, suicided and looked for new roles before even
starting / telling clan staff -  6/08/08.
Set karma to 2, ACTUALLY, waiting to
here a response on my email, since they have some positive notes, want to be
sure this wasn't a misunderstanding -  6/08/08.
Set karma to 0, Ignores clan
documentation, fucks up special roles, gives paper-thin reports, leaves vital
information out of any report that is given, and is generally a bad example
for newbs. -  5/08/09.
Set karma to 1, Granted back 1 karma, as they have
earned this through positive comments -  5/22/09.
Set karma to 2, The player
helped to guide conversation away from IC information during the oregon APM
tele-chat on 3 occasions.  Please see my comments above on this date. - 
8/10/09.
Set karma to 3, Took the restrictions and such of Kadian Junior
Trader in great stride, and was very responsible about it. -  8/21/10.
Set
karma to 4, as per notes -  1/29/12.
Set karma to 5, point for communication -
8/07/14.

I made a big long post with my account note shit at some point but I can't be fucked to find it. I've been karma wiped before. I got denied my 6th point of karma this last go around because I got into it with a certain staff member in an unprofessional way.

I might request my notes sometime, but honestly until recently they were all negative I'm sure. So that's sorta like saying, hey can you punch me in the stomach so I remember what it feels like?

I have a karma review pending and I'm hoping to start going in the right direction as I've been at 1 karma for years. I'll see how that goes and then maybe request my notes.

I can't stand the thought of asking for karma.

Quote from: Warsong on March 29, 2016, 03:16:10 AM
I can't stand the thought of asking for karma.

The worst that happens is they say "not yet," and offer you suggestions.

Unless you got 8 way back when and have spent your time since watching mudsexers, like Jingo has.

Always ask for Bard, Karma is so Season 2..

Seriously though I think I have asked for account notes once, didn't like the wall of text and never bothered again. But then again, I only ever played or tried for one sponsored role and that was when Naiona was still on staff.

I have 3 karma - 2 from a long lived char (longevity and communication). 1 from when the extended subguilds came out and I sent in a request saying I'd like to be able to play those and basically I wasn't all bad since I didn't knowingly cavort with breeds or magic users. I've never requested notes.

I only play indies (rebelled both times I've been in a clan).
I use the char reports and bios to describe motivations: PK Alert - my char is now totally hating X and would take an opportunity to put them in the grave or my char is fond of X so is kindly disposed to group Y.

Show that you treat the game world with respect (the world, not necessarily other pc's) by communicating with staff and you'll have karma in no time.
I think it is an important distinction to show those who are trying to play in the world vs those who are just racking up exp on a mud.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 03:02:19 AM
I might request my notes sometime, but honestly until recently they were all negative I'm sure.

I wonder if there should be a statute of limitations (or whatever you call it) on bad account notes? Like 2 - 3 years and negative notes are forgiven. (Deleted in your next karma review.)

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on March 29, 2016, 08:33:22 AM

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 03:02:19 AM
I might request my notes sometime, but honestly until recently they were all negative I'm sure.

I wonder if there should be a statute of limitations (or whatever you call it) on bad account notes? Like 2 - 3 years and negative notes are forgiven. (Deleted in your next karma review.)

I don't personally consider negative character or account notes more than a year old (or before the last karma review, whichever is more recent) to be relevant, unless they're part of a trend that is still ongoing. Not to speak for all staff but I think we generally think a similar way with regards to old notes. Leaving old negative notes there is a means of demonstrating improvement over time.

(http://triciawarren.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Karma.png)

I have five karma.

This tells me the following:

I don't roleplay well enough to get karma point 6.

My leaders aren't good enough leaders to get karma point 7.

After almost 20 years of play I don't understand the culture of the world well enough for karma point 8.


I'll just have console myself with the 32 kudos I have from other players who played with me who believe exactly the opposite. (With 12 of those coming for a single leader for being a great leader in the eyes of other players.)

(This is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, for the most part. My point is that even if you are good at these things and everyone else and their mother thinks you are good at these things.......the only thing that matters is that a staffer somewhere takes a personal interest in you to award said karma. I have no idea what I got my five karma points for. I may have gotten one of them for "being a good leader". But, if I got that "leader point" for karma number 2, I basically wasted it when it could have been "worth" karma point 7. It seems like there should be some more structure in place for this sort of thing.)

Also, Valeria is a great player and deserves every one of these karma points. I'm just using her post to illustrate that this system really does need more structure.

I'm also not saying "I need more karma". I don't use it anyways beyond karma point 3, and that was for a couple of short-lived half-giants I tinkered with for a bit between characters before storing them.

Quote from: Desertman on March 29, 2016, 08:43:30 AM
This tells me the following:

I don't roleplay well enough to get karma point 6.

My leaders aren't good enough leaders to get karma point 7.

After almost 20 years of play I don't understand the culture of the world well enough for karma point 8.

I know your post was tongue in cheek, but I want to make sure that other players know that you can get all the karmas without doing everything.  For instance, I have 0 points in "understanding of magick and its place in the game world."  Probably because I very very rarely play magickers.  I've done like 3 months of magicker play in seven years.

Anyway, it isn't about personal interest anymore (since late 2011), it's about asking to have your karma reviewed.  The gap between 10/01/13 and 9/27/15 is because I couldn't be bothered to ask for a karma review.  And even before that, I've pretty consistently requested my account notes because I wanted to keep tabs on my account notes and keep up my excel file of what I've played, how many hours, how they died, etc, because I'm a dork.  If you haven't been asking, you probably just haven't been looked at.

Just in case anyone wanted to see the karma record for a Producer:

Set account karma to 1, for roleplaying [PC] very nicely during a gith duel in the sands, which he lost. -  9/14/08.
Set account karma to 2, for wonderful play with [PC].  Helped keep people interested, worked actively with all factions of Tuluk, and got things done. -  7/15/09.
Set account karma to 3, nice job with [PC] -  7/28/09.


Quote from: valeria on March 29, 2016, 08:59:25 AM

Quote from: Desertman on March 29, 2016, 08:43:30 AM
This tells me the following:

I don't roleplay well enough to get karma point 6.

My leaders aren't good enough leaders to get karma point 7.

After almost 20 years of play I don't understand the culture of the world well enough for karma point 8.

I know your post was tongue in cheek, but I want to make sure that other players know that you can get all the karmas without doing everything.  For instance, I have 0 points in "understanding of magick and its place in the game world."  Probably because I very very rarely play magickers.  I've done like 3 months of magicker play in seven years.

Anyway, it isn't about personal interest anymore (since late 2011), it's about asking to have your karma reviewed.  The gap between 10/01/13 and 9/27/15 is because I couldn't be bothered to ask for a karma review.  And even before that, I've pretty consistently requested my account notes because I wanted to keep tabs on my account notes and keep up my excel file of what I've played, how many hours, how they died, etc, because I'm a dork.  If you haven't been asking, you probably just haven't been looked at.

Yeah, I've never asked for a review.

You got me there.

Quote from: Rathustra on March 29, 2016, 09:03:29 AM
Just in case anyone wanted to see the karma record for a Producer:

Code Select Expand


Set account karma to 1, for roleplaying [PC] very nicely during a gith duel in the sands, which he lost. -  9/14/08.
Set account karma to 2, for wonderful play with [PC].  Helped keep people interested, worked actively with all factions of Tuluk, and got things done. -  7/15/09.
Set account karma to 3, nice job with [PC] -  7/28/09.


lelgetrekt scrublord

come 2 my howse so i can teech u how 2 derf

Honesty time?

I've never once asked for my account notes. Not ever. It makes me feel uncomfortable to think of being observed.

I'm mostly afraid I'm going to see stuff in there that's way off base or is super judge-y, because, let's face it, I don't often feel like staff is always there to support my fun, I feel like they're there to judge me.

Necessary disclaimer: I know that this isn't true for all of staff, but this is how I tend to feel based on the prevailing attitudes and actions I have observed in the last ~7 years.

I have full karma, and I do feel like I deserve it, because I've never done anything that makes me feel like I don't - but I still constantly feel like I'm being judged on if I'm worthy of keeping it.

So for my sanity, I just pretend that things like account notes and karma don't exist. That way I can just have fun without suffering from performance anxiety.

Maybe that's the secret?

Quote from: Delirium on March 29, 2016, 09:20:08 AM
Honesty time?

I've never once asked for my account notes. Not ever. It makes me feel uncomfortable to think of being observed.

I'm mostly afraid I'm going to see stuff in there that's way off base or is super judge-y, because, let's face it, I don't often feel like staff is always there to support my fun, I feel like they're there to judge me.

Necessary disclaimer: I know that this isn't true for all of staff, but this is how I tend to feel based on the prevailing attitudes and actions I have observed in the last ~7 years.

I have full karma, and I do feel like I deserve it, because I've never done anything that makes me feel like I don't - but I still constantly feel like I'm being judged on if I'm worthy of keeping it.

So for my sanity, I just pretend that things like account notes and karma don't exist. That way I can just have fun without suffering from performance anxiety.

Maybe that's the secret?

I'm going to be honest as well. This is pretty much me.

:-\

What Delirium said.

Maybe it's endemic to "veterans" as veteran = players with "above average" karma.  Worry, worry, worry.

Account notes and karma review are separate options now as well. What people should be asking for is a karma review if they think they deserve one, not account notes anymore. And the karma review doesn't come with notes attached.

Quote from: Is Friday on March 29, 2016, 01:43:05 AM
Set karma to 3, Took the restrictions and such of Kadian Junior
Trader in great stride, and was very responsible about it. -  8/21/10.

<3 Really wish we'd managed to arrange a marriage ...

Oh, and since everyone is telling their secrets.

I've never requested a karma report. I'm afraid to look, honestly. I requested my notes after my first long-lived char and I didn't have any notes. I have three karma. First gained after I spec apped a d-elf. Second after a long-lived Kuraci junior agent, I think. Third during a medium-lived Kadian agent. My often limited play times, propensity to enjoy the grind, and a poorly handled interaction with staff back in 2010 mean that I'm completely content with my karma and I don't feel like I deserve or need more.

It doesn't seem right to me that someone like me has the same amount of karma as someone like Dman. He's been playing about three times as long as I have and is well-known as a leader and roleplayer. Maybe it's just because he hasn't asked for a review, but I haven't asked that much, either.

I guess karma is a very individual thing and we probably shouldn't be going around comparing, but reading something like that makes me feel like I deserve less than I have.

EDIT: I also get that feeling like I'm constantly in danger of losing my karma. At least it keeps me on my toes and steers me away from falling too deeply into my bad habits.

One thing that I can tell you WON'T get you Karma is assuming the worst when Staff contact you.

Years ago when staff would contact me and say, "Hey why did you do this?"

Or I get the dreaded
A staff member sends: DUM DUM DUMMMMMM

In game.

I would instantly be back on my heels and be ready with venom and spite.

"How dare they ask my motivations!?  It's my character fuck them!" or similar thoughts went through my head.

Then when it came time to wish all or respond to that staff opened request, I would be in the wrong mindset and go in with a fuck you type mentality.

I now try to be much more civil and just be accommodating. I recently got the dreaded staff member sends about something that while I didn't really agree with, I figured it wasn't a huge ask from them either so I said.

Okay, I'll keep an eye on it.

So far nothing has come of it negatively.

Plus who knows, it also might have been that me and Nyr just didn't have good chemistry.  But this current group of admin seems super reasonable and easy to deal with.

So moral of the story, don't take things super personal like I used to, don't view it as they are saying you suck if they approach you with something, ask questions, explain yourself and if they say, "We'd rather not have you do this." say OK.

Quote from: Nergal on March 29, 2016, 08:39:04 AM
I don't personally consider negative character or account notes more than a year old (or before the last karma review, whichever is more recent) to be relevant, unless they're part of a trend that is still ongoing. Not to speak for all staff but I think we generally think a similar way with regards to old notes. Leaving old negative notes there is a means of demonstrating improvement over time.

That is GTK. Every time I revisit my account notes, I find this oldie from like my first year of play about how I basically spent a couple hours running around the desert spam killing and sleeping, and I think to myself "That's not fair! I'm much less obvious about how I abuse the virtual world these days!" :p

Quote from: Delirium on March 29, 2016, 09:20:08 AMI have full karma, and I do feel like I deserve it, because I've never done anything that makes me feel like I don't - but I still constantly feel like I'm being judged on if I'm worthy of keeping it.

Yup

Sometimes I just want to make a character who roams the wastes, forages for salt without emoting, and quits without interacting with another person, but I worry that as an 8 karma player it will get me a silent bad note I'll never be informed of.

just how I feel

Quote from: Desertman on March 29, 2016, 08:43:30 AM
I'll just have console myself with the 32 kudos I have from other players who played with me who believe exactly the opposite. (With 12 of those coming for a single leader for being a great leader in the eyes of other players.)

Moral of this story?  Send more kudos!  They really are like the coolest thing ever to get especially for a new player.

There should be a thread for this...

Be very careful on the gdb as well.  I just recieved my Karma review and was told that they feel I require too much moderation on here.

Which I accept, sometimes I do lose my cool on the boards.  That's always been one of the things I didn't really like about the karma system, your actions on the board overrule what you do in character and how you play them.

But it is what it is, can't change the way shit works. So if you find yourself in the same boat as me, just stop posting on the gdb and at least that's one thing that can't be counted against you.

About account notes I feel similar.

I have literally Armed for more than half my life, and through all of my school - highschool, college and medical school. I requested my account notes once, in like 2008, and there's one in there from 2003 that I winced and went, "Oh, that is angsty 14 year old me." I'm glad to be on a much more even keel now. :)

Interestingly enough, though...


...As of this point, I've gotten more karma as a high schooler and college freshman than I have as a surgeon.

Karma needs to become an expendable resource that regenerates over time, the way they described CGP would be.  Everyone gets Karma + 3 = CGP.  Will people still bitch and moan about favoritism?  Well, duh.  That's normal, IMO.  But at least it would be more fair if everyone had a regular crack at the plate.

Unless it's changed, people already get to spec-app for something 3 levels above their karma level. A zero karma player can play a half-giant, or some magickers, or an extended subguild. They just have to expend a spec-app which are limited. I don't see much difference between the "regenerating karma/CGP system" and what we have now, honestly, at least when it comes to giving lower-karma players a chance to play otherwise locked PCs.

Now, if you want to limit the amount of extended subguilds, magickers, muls and half-giants in the game at anyone one time, yeah, such a system might do that. I'm just not sure I'd agree with it.

QuoteBe very careful on the gdb as well.  I just recieved my Karma review and was told that they feel I require too much moderation on here.

Unless it's something where you're breaking rules of the game consistently, i.e. spreading info, flaming, etc...it shouldn't affect your karma levels, and should be taken as feedback from staff on your 'standing'.  At least, that's the impression I get from reading my account notes.  Then again, those account notes are from a different era.

So I 'unno!

This thread is sort of making me want to put in a request for a karma review, and sort of making me never want to put one in again. I'm torn, so maybe I'll just bite the bullet and put in a review to see what happens. I don't think I'll get my sixth but I might get some helpful advice about how to work towards it.

To add to the discussion after perusing some posts in this thread, the examples given does make it awkwardly apparent that some players are uneven from others, and for seemingly arbitrary reasons that could come across entirely as favoritism.  I suppose if I cared, I would find some complaint in it.  Specific reference = Dman:Valeria.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 03:40:19 PM
To add to the discussion after perusing some posts in this thread, the examples given does make it awkwardly apparent that some players are uneven from others, and for seemingly arbitrary reasons that could come across entirely as favoritism.  I suppose if I cared, I would find some complaint in it.  Specific reference = Dman:Valeria.

I'm pretty sure he admitted he never asks for karma reviews, and I basically asked for them every chance I got. That's not arbitrary, that's a case of "if you don't ask they won't answer yes."

Every single point of karma I have I specifically asked for, and some of the times I asked I was told no. I have sent in account notes and karma review requests almost to the day every six months.

Set karma to 1, On
recommendation of Storytellers who think it's worth giving him a shot. -
11/03/10.
Set karma to 2, for great RP with Errigson -  3/04/12.
Set karma to
3, for racial understanding -  9/03/12.
Set karma to 4, second rp point (1
longevity, 2 rp, 1 racial) - 11/03/14.
Set karma to 5, adding a point for
magick understanding -  2/23/16.

I just put in my karma review request. Fingers crossed! I want to request my account notes as well, but I want to see my notes on my current character in particular and I don't think they show them to you until they're dead/stored, so I'll probably hold off until this PC is out of the picture.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 03:40:19 PM
To add to the discussion after perusing some posts in this thread, the examples given does make it awkwardly apparent that some players are uneven from others, and for seemingly arbitrary reasons that could come across entirely as favoritism.  I suppose if I cared, I would find some complaint in it.  Specific reference = Dman:Valeria.

Eh, it's not fair to make this comparison.

I may have been around twice as long, but you have to remember that for the first half of my "career" here I was a complete and total shitbag on the GDB and I own up to that now.

I haven't been in many years now, but this is a small community and to pretend it doesn't leave a lasting affect is to pretend we aren't all human.

Valeria was never a shitbag.

Call it OOC politics, or whatever you want to call it, but I absolutely sabotaged myself on that front.

Quote from: valeria on March 29, 2016, 03:45:22 PM

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 03:40:19 PM
To add to the discussion after perusing some posts in this thread, the examples given does make it awkwardly apparent that some players are uneven from others, and for seemingly arbitrary reasons that could come across entirely as favoritism.  I suppose if I cared, I would find some complaint in it.  Specific reference = Dman:Valeria.

I'm pretty sure he admitted he never asks for karma reviews, and I basically asked for them every chance I got. That's not arbitrary, that's a case of "if you don't ask they won't answer yes."

Ah, I see.  But ...

Quote from: Delirium on March 29, 2016, 09:20:08 AM
I've never once asked for my account notes. Not ever. It makes me feel uncomfortable to think of being observed.

Quote from: Desertman on March 29, 2016, 03:50:43 PM
Call it OOC politics, or whatever you want to call it, but I absolutely sabotaged myself on that front.

You are just the example I pruned from these texts.  I found out one of the best players I've ever interacted with on this game has only 4 karma.  He also never asks for it, but wound up with half the karma of Delirium, for instance.

That "arbitrary" comment is really grinding my gears. I think a lot of people from the old school just expect that they should get karma for being a good player.

But people don't just get "noticed" anymore. Shortly after I started playing, like maybe five years ago, there was an announcement that tied it to account notes requests. And now there's a separate karma review option. I don't think staff just hand out karma anymore except maybe the longevity one, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Delirium almost certainly got her karma before the new system and hasn't put in a request since.

These days, you have to put in the request. The staff discusses the request. The responses and reasoning all get stored like other requests. There's a paper trail. It's actually a lot less arbitrary than just staff just handing it out when they feel like it.

(And I am lucky that I spent my teenage shit bag years in AIM chats and on other MUDs, I'll admit.)

I did say seemingly arbitrary, and I make that distinction because I don't have the details.  What seems apparent now is that the difference between you and Desertman is that he was once a problematic player many years ago, and you are the gold standard when it comes to staff-player relations.

Quote from: valeria on March 29, 2016, 03:59:59 PM
Delirium almost certainly got her karma before the new system and hasn't put in a request since.

I've been playing for 14 years. So I probably did.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 04:04:52 PM
I did say seemingly arbitrary, and I make that distinction because I don't have the details.  What seems apparent is that the difference between you and Desertman is that he was once a problematic player many years ago, and you are the gold standard when it comes to staff-player relations.

I was a problematic GDB personality.

I was never a problematic player and have gotten multiple comments from staff over the years about my ability to empathize with, sympathize with, and give OOC consideration to other players. (In the game.)

But the fact remains, completely OOC and unrelated issues will follow you into the game world even you aren't the one who takes them there.

That's just part of being in a small online community for a long time. People can and will remember you.

I'm sure ten years from now as a 40 year old man I will staff have people/staff who think of me as 19-Year-Old-Desertman-Shitbag. *shrug*

What is this, a religion?  I don't know how I managed to get annoyed by this subject, but I have.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 04:09:50 PM
What is this, a religion?

We have a lot of aspects here that you would expect to find in a cult.

Disturbingly, a lot of them remind me of Scientology.

Take that as you will.

Quote from: Delirium on March 29, 2016, 04:07:53 PM

Quote from: valeria on March 29, 2016, 03:59:59 PM
Delirium almost certainly got her karma before the new system and hasn't put in a request since.

I've been playing for 14 years. So I probably did.

Yeah, this happened back in 2011:

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,42023.0.html (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,42023.0.html)

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,42141.0.html (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,42141.0.html)

It was kind of a big deal at the time.

I had completely forgot about that.

It makes sense that I'm pretty sure I got all of my karma before that and I'm pretty sure none since. Hmm.

I'm the type of player who is not some paragon for roleplay. All 4 of my Karma has been earned under the new system, and honestly it only took a little work to get. I've made plenty of mistakes. Even recently for suiciding. I would say I've always played a little twinkish, or at the very least I put an emphasis on skilling-up when my character is new. But there's always roleplay in there, so I don't think staff has ever minded much. I originally had 3 karma under the old system, but lost it all for double-accounting. They didn't officially strip me of Karma, just kept me with the account that had none and deleted the other. I was okay with it.

I received my new first Karma for Longevity. This one is the easiest to get. Just stay around for a little while and then send in a karma review. The second Karma was for Communication. This just had 1 some-what long lived leader-type (2 IC years?). I sent in updates and questions for about a month or so, requested notes/karma review, and received the karma. Now I don't communicate a ton, because mostly my PC's are low-impact and I don't see much need.  The second Karma I got was for roleplay. I think I got this one for hating on magickers in-game, but I'm not entirely sure on this one, it could have been for Scowler, the warrior/slipknife I played for a while. Last point was my second RP karma. I got it for playing a Gith. That Gith rolecall gave me so much faith in staff. They bent over backwards to accommodate us, flesh out the tablelands and the lore and make the world come alive. I felt like I was under staff eyes 100% of the time so I just cranked my shit up to eleven and roleplayed my heart out. After my Gith died I got the Karma pt.

I feel like these 4 Karma required very little work my part, every time I was sending in reports, or roleplaying my heart out it was because I was genuinely enjoying myself and my character at the time. It wasn't something I did 100% of the time or felt obligated to do, so none of it felt like work. I feel like anyone who does some of the things I did WILL get karma. Send reports, roleplay your heart out, live for a long enough time for players/staff to notice your character, and most importantly TRY OUT FOR A SPONSORED ROLE OR STEP INTO A LEADERSHIP POSITION! They are by far the quickest way to get staff attention, and thus karma.

As for the GDB... You don't have to be careful. I'm not careful, I have very little filter and post a fuck-ton(even post on the other forum infrequently without staff coming down on me, so...). Just don't get into ridiculous shit-slinging contests with staff or other players. In general show staff appreciation when they do things right. I criticize them, I sometime bitch at them and have even thrown a number childish fits in the past. But you know what? They make this game what it is. They are the reason we're able to play it, and they absolutely deserve recognition for that. So send staff Kudos when they deserve it. Show them appreciation and they WILL be more inclined to show you some in return, that's just how humans work.

Quote from: Delirium on March 29, 2016, 09:20:08 AM
I'm mostly afraid I'm going to see stuff in there that's way off base or is super judge-y, because, let's face it, I don't often feel like staff is always there to support my fun, I feel like they're there to judge me.

I got my notes at one point and almost dropped the game over it.

It isn't even that there are negative things there, I anticipated there would be some based on the things I enjoy about the game. However, some of the things there were incredibly petty and absolutely smacked of someone spending all of three seconds observing a scene, or a situation, having no real understanding of it and making a knee-jerk assumption and subsequent judgement.

The worst part about the account notes / karma system is that it is silent. There are people who can spend a few seconds passing through a room, see something and damn you for years without your ever knowing about it or giving you a chance to explain yourself. There is never an inquiry about 'hey, why is your PC doing X, could you explain it?', it goes directly to notes and you would never know about it without asking to see them.

There is every chance you won't see the worst of them, either, as they're subject to pruning before the player receives them.

It's like some kind of neckbeard gestapo bullshit.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 04:09:50 PM
What is this, a religion?  I don't know how I managed to get annoyed by this subject, but I have.

Log in, we'll ride kanks and kill mans, it'll be great.

I'll put it out there that karma is still subjective. They made a push with those rules to make it a more objective tool, but elsewhere staff have repeated that most players will not exceed the karma cap, which I believe was 5-6.  There is no objective reason why some players are allowed to exceed that cap and others are not.  Not to mention the reviews can be declined.  There will always be a subjective decision made, and after thinking on it, I'm not sure that can be done purely without favoritism.  The system is flawed.

Quote from: Vwest on March 29, 2016, 04:25:35 PM

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 04:09:50 PM
What is this, a religion?  I don't know how I managed to get annoyed by this subject, but I have.

Log in, we'll ride kanks and kill mans, it'll be great.

I'm all outta bubblegum.

I feel like a karma review kind of pressures staff when you haven't gotten low-level karma in years, but reading all these makes me think its okay, and honestly I -have- been playing good witches and dwarves, in my opinion. I used to play such meh dwarves. I didn't really understand what a focus was supposed to be and thought of it in human terms. I still inject a little human into my elves and that bothers me, but at least I'm aware of it.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 04:26:17 PM
I'll put it out there that karma is still subjective. They made a push with those rules to make it a more objective tool, but elsewhere staff have repeated that most players will not exceed the karma cap, which I believe was 5-6.  There is no objective reason why some players are allowed to exceed that cap and others are not.  Not to mention the reviews can be declined.  There will always be a subjective decision made, and after thinking on it, I'm not sure that can be done purely without favoritism.  The system is flawed.

Can you explain yourself here a bit?  What do you mean staff have said most don't get past 5-6 karma? What instances can a karma review can be declined? Only one I can think of is if you've played for less than 6 months.

I think you're all worrying about it too much.

If you want karma, play to the docs and communicate with staff. Giving staff a good sense of who your character is and why they might act like they do will also mitigate any "neckbeard gestapo" bad account notes since staff will now have additional context on your character.

I've rarely found hyperbole to work very well in staff communication either, incidentally.

I try not to worry about karma (which is admittedly easy to say when I've worked my way up to 4). I try to judge my success not over how many karmas or kudos I've gotten for a role, but how much fun I'm having playing it.

I had like three neutral account notes but I already deleted the email. See if I can remember them.

* Spent time in jail completely AFK until released, right through a Templar interrogation. The exact words used were 'Kind of lame!'
* Had vnpcs in her tdesc. (This was the blind chick.)
* Great thinks and feels. (the character Col, who I believe was in the Byn)

Nothing recent, I think. I did like playing unmanifested witches in clans in the past but those didn't have any notes on them, although I bet they were still watched more.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 29, 2016, 04:35:27 PM
I try not to worry about karma (which is admittedly easy to say when I've worked my way up to 4). I try to judge my success not over how many karmas or kudos I've gotten for a role, but how much fun I'm having playing it.

Yeah- once you get a certain amount karma is really more about time-saving than anything.

I suppose. Personally I've had the most fun on 0 karma, non-spec app characters. Everything else has been a hassle or a disappointment (or both).

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on March 29, 2016, 04:34:25 PM

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 04:26:17 PM
I'll put it out there that karma is still subjective. They made a push with those rules to make it a more objective tool, but elsewhere staff have repeated that most players will not exceed the karma cap, which I believe was 5-6.  There is no objective reason why some players are allowed to exceed that cap and others are not.  Not to mention the reviews can be declined.  There will always be a subjective decision made, and after thinking on it, I'm not sure that can be done purely without favoritism.  The system is flawed.

Can you explain yourself here a bit?  What do you mean staff have said most don't get past 5-6 karma? What instances can a karma review can be declined? Only one I can think of is if you've played for less than 6 months.

Request Granted:

Ralken,

Sorry this took so long. You are currently assessed at 4 points of karma, points beyond 4 become harder to earn and so the scrutiny is tougher and the points are not 'equal' to those at 4 and below.

You were granted your 4th point in November and we feel that was relatively recent and that for now 4 points is a fair assessment for your karma level.

To me karma is about getting my work recognized. So if staff responds to my karma review request with, "We think we're going to hold off on giving you your next karma point, but you're definitely on the right track and we think you're doing a great job," I'll be pleased with that.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 03:56:00 PM
You are just the example I pruned from these texts.  I found out one of the best players I've ever interacted with on this game has only 4 karma.  He also never asks for it, but wound up with half the karma of Delirium, for instance.

Though the following statement may seem obvious, the staff of 10 years ago are different from the staff of today.

Some people have gotten their 8th karma point back before there were karma reviews, or even a specific standard on how players earn karma. That's not to say they all don't still deserve their karma today. However, they got their 8th karma from being noticed, subjectively, by a given staff member - and that staff member subjectively deciding that that player deserved extra karma.

Today, we ask players to put in a request if they want more karma. There are specific criteria in the karma process, and players don't have to meet all of them to max out their karma. Multiple staff get input on the request, and get to put in their own recommendations. The system is as objective as it can be while still being run by humans with opinions.

Quote from: Delirium on March 29, 2016, 09:20:08 AM
I have full karma, and I do feel like I deserve it, because I've never done anything that makes me feel like I don't - but I still constantly feel like I'm being judged on if I'm worthy of keeping it.

Karma is supposed to be about trust.  Do you feel that you can be trusted to play an 8 karma roll? Would you keep to the docs, make the world come alive, tell a good story and do your best rp? Would it be FUN for all?

I reckon it would be all of those things, so I reckon you do deserve it.  :)

Quote from: MeTekillot on March 29, 2016, 04:42:16 PM

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on March 29, 2016, 04:34:25 PM

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 04:26:17 PM
I'll put it out there that karma is still subjective. They made a push with those rules to make it a more objective tool, but elsewhere staff have repeated that most players will not exceed the karma cap, which I believe was 5-6.  There is no objective reason why some players are allowed to exceed that cap and others are not.  Not to mention the reviews can be declined.  There will always be a subjective decision made, and after thinking on it, I'm not sure that can be done purely without favoritism.  The system is flawed.

Can you explain yourself here a bit?  What do you mean staff have said most don't get past 5-6 karma? What instances can a karma review can be declined? Only one I can think of is if you've played for less than 6 months.

Request Granted:

Ralken,

Sorry this took so long. You are currently assessed at 4 points of karma, points beyond 4 become harder to earn and so the scrutiny is tougher and the points are not 'equal' to those at 4 and below.

You were granted your 4th point in November and we feel that was relatively recent and that for now 4 points is a fair assessment for your karma level.

Interesting. I wonder if this is to keep 5+karma magickers/muls more rare, or if there's some other reason.

OLD KARMA PLAYERS UP AGAINST THE WALL

EASY TO TALK ABOUT KARMA BEING UNIMPORTANT WHEN YOU GOT IT BEFORE THE KARMA ECONOMY CRASHED

lol


I've yet to get a karma/I don't think I have one in my time playing.
That being said I took, what, a three month break?
And I'm a dumb ass.
But heres the thing.



Do I want karma?
Meh.
Would it be nice
Also meh

Quote from: MeTekillot on March 29, 2016, 04:47:56 PM
EASY TO TALK ABOUT KARMA BEING UNIMPORTANT WHEN YOU GOT IT BEFORE THE KARMA ECONOMY CRASHED

The avatar really sells it.

Quote from: Vwest on March 29, 2016, 04:52:59 PM

Quote from: MeTekillot on March 29, 2016, 04:47:56 PM
EASY TO TALK ABOUT KARMA BEING UNIMPORTANT WHEN YOU GOT IT BEFORE THE KARMA ECONOMY CRASHED

The avatar really sells it.

Yeah I laughed.

(http://i.imgur.com/7bq4xgj.jpeg)

Hehe.  I've played with delirium, I'm positive she deserves her karma.  I'm sure everyone does.  I'm just pondering why there is a cap before the cap.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 05:00:06 PM
Hehe.  I've played with delirium, I'm positive she deserves her karma.  I'm sure everyone does.  I'm just pondering why there is a cap before the cap.

Is there such a thing? Cap²? Not sure what you are saying.

I'm on my phone and out and about, or I would search the GDB for you, Nyr-style.  I cannot, though.

The only post I can really recall suggesing anything like a SubCap is this one from earlier in the thread

Quote from: Nergal on March 26, 2016, 08:12:46 PM

Quote from: Dresan on March 26, 2016, 07:56:18 PM
While I generally like the changes so far, I have to agree that all the changes are putting a lot more emphasis on the karma system. A system which is still considered biased, flawed and unfair by many. Despite its guidelines, the way karma is calculated is still really up to interpretation by whoever is reviewing you.

Several members of the staff team pitch in to review players in many cases. It is not an autocratic process, although that also makes it slow.

Quote
The majority of people don't get beyond two or three karma, even if they never play anything remotely twinky or threatening. This idea is probably not going to be popular but karma should be more of an automated process. After certain point of time played(we are talking months if not a year here) a player should probably be rewarded karma assuming there are no bad notes or concerns to their records. This should continue to a specific limit.  I feel that karma limit should be 5, forcing anything above 5 karma to be special app only. That said, ideally I feel the limit should be four karma but that is with the assumption players will be able to special app things four level above their karma instead of three.

Typically the cut-off is 4-5 karma before it starts to get harder to earn karma. I would say most players have the potential to reach it, however at the moment that requires them to put in regular karma reviews to kind of remind us to review them.

Quote
Until the system is changed to a more automated process, the idea that staff rewards only people they like, their friends or just the people they are dating with karma is unfortunately a fair criticism.  :-[

It used to be a fair criticism, for sure. Nowadays many players earn their first karma for longevity within six months, and new active players generally get up to two karma within a year. I see a lot of players who have earned their karma before the current review process, often 7-10+ years ago, and in many cases it is vague as to how they got that karma at best. I feel there are many low-karma players who deserve to be notched up and a few high-karma players that deserve, at the least, a review under the current guidelines. The question really becomes how staff can do this in a way that is fair for everyone.

I encourage anyone who is concerned about their karma level to put in a review and ask for feedback. That said, if you don't trust in the process enough to do even that then it's difficult to help.

Emphasis mine

There are people with 8 I think deserve none. There are people with none I think deserve 8. We all have different opinions.

It's hard to notice everyone and give props where it's do but I think since the change in karma reviews it's been a lot more balanced across the board, ask for karma, make a few statements about why you feel you might be deserving, all staff comment. It's about as close to a fair trial as you can get. Back in the day you just had to rub one staffer the right or wrong way and your karma would swing way up or way down. Now is much better.

People that had lots of karma prior to the change in how karma works didn't get stripped and re-evaluated because it just would have upset players more often than not. However, if you fuck up you very well might get re-evaluated to today's karma standards.

It's more of a natural cut-off from the way the categories are designed and the way players fit into them (not every player is great at everything or even gets the chance to demonstrate certain criteria, e.g. leadership).

I might be the only person who's got karma for hacking the game  8)

Karma is tricky though. I agree that there should be a kind of trust based progression, and staff have said the current point system is against criteria (beyond what we see), but it does make it harder for off peaks and people with inconsistent play to be rated properly. People also take karma very personally, and I assume most people feel they deserve more regardless of how self aware that is.

I'm not sure if the current karma locked options array makes much sense with spec apps, or that all of the options are costed correctly. 8 karma is pretty arbitrary also. Are spec apps even relevant any more?

Quote from: Case on March 29, 2016, 05:23:13 PM
I'm not sure if the current karma locked options array makes much sense with spec apps, or that all of the options are costed correctly. 8 karma is pretty arbitrary also. Are spec apps even relevant any more?

I think so. They allow people who've gotten to 4 and 5 karma to apply for the really tricky roles - muls, sorcerers, psions. I imagine playing those roles and playing them well is a good way to prove you're responsible enough for that extra point of karma... Though once you hit 5 karma I think karma becomes kind of meaningless after that. Unless you want to make a mul with an extended subguild.

The same logic applies to people with less karma, really. Spec-apps let you play roles that might be out of your normal limit and give you a chance to prove you're responsible enough to be trusted with them. This is particularly true for the magick subguilds and half-giants; I don't think there's a lot of karma to be won by playing a Master Potter responsibly. (Nor do I think you should need karma to play one in the first place, but I digress)

I would like to suggest documentation that details what staff will limit or deny karma for.  And I'm not just talking about pointing to the rules.  If something like this already exists, mea culpa.

http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Karma

Quote
ArmageddonMUD operates a Karma system designed to open up the more complicated, powerful and RP challenging roles to players. Karma is simply a measure of trust that the staff members have in a given player's:

   Degree of maturity and responsibility as a role-player, as evidenced by playing roles realistically and acting responsibly with the code.
   Knowledge of the game world, and an appreciation of the way in which the various races, guilds, and so on, interact.
   Role-playing skill, as evidenced by role-playing in such a way as to show that they are really involved in the game world, and also enriching the game world for other players.

I don't think there's a list of "If you do X, we won't give you karma. If you do Y, we won't give you karma."

There's a few things that maybe could be more clearly stated - respect the virtual world (and virtual NPCs) is a big part of the "acting responsibly with the code," I think. Not being combative with staff or other players falls under exhibiting a "Degree of maturity and responsibility as a roleplayer." Learning when not to use the code to your advantage, even when you mechanically can, is also a big part of acting responsibly.

I hope this isn't coming across as snarky.

I stopped for gas outside Cedar Point after a few exchanges with staff on this subject so I'll chime in and I'm guessing they may delete this because I don't think it will shine them in a good light.

So I put in a karma request, I have one and hardly play d elves because it can be awesome or boring depending on the current time of the tribe and I don't want to roll one up, find out there is one other tribemember and store. So I hardly use the Karma thing.

However after I saw all these notes about first rp karma and second rp karma and all that I asked in a question why I never get those? Is there something specific about my roleplay they don't like etc etc and other things I know I can't get into here.

In response I got this...

Frankly?  Because you're a nuisance in the OOC sense.  We're not obligated to give you karma if you make our lives difficult, even if you're the world's best RP'er. 

From a producer...

So when I get home in front of a real PC and not a iPhone I'll file a staff complaint.

My feeling is Karma is unfairly meted out, has been for years and probably will be for years.  Shit happens I guess.

I think my natural inclination is to just believe people will complain and my first thoughts in this thread reflect that.  I've suggested before, here and elsewhere, that the karma review is a better process.  But I had to wonder if my lazy attitude towards karma was because I have more than what I need.  Could staff elaborate on whether there is a correlation between GDB tomfoolery and karma restriction?  How objective is the process?  I'm curious, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Karma is the staff's level of trust that you're going to need very little of their assistance and time in order to accomplish things. It is how they judge you to be someone who treats the game in such a way that the "virtual" world doesn't need to come alive. As thanks, they allow us to play a more powerful character.

Karma AWARDS need a real revamping, but the idea behind Karma is pretty legit. I hate it. I'll never ask for karma, especially when I've had Producer+ get on me for something I absolutely didn't do, even after explaining why they saw what they saw. I generally see "the virtual world's reaction" less as a supportive storytelling role, and more of a "staff meting out punishment" role. But the more they have to animate the world in response to someone's actions, the less time they can TRY to be a supportive role.

My heart bleeds for staff awarding karma, and also I hope you all get blasted off to the Vestric Orbital Space Station.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 06:34:50 PM
I stopped for gas outside Cedar Point after a few exchanges with staff on this subject so I'll chime in and I'm guessing they may delete this because I don't think it will shine them in a good light.

So I put in a karma request, I have one and hardly play d elves because it can be awesome or boring depending on the current time of the tribe and I don't want to roll one up, find out there is one other tribemember and store. So I hardly use the Karma thing.

However after I saw all these notes about first rp karma and second rp karma and all that I asked in a question why I never get those? Is there something specific about my roleplay they don't like etc etc and other things I know I can't get into here.

In response I got this...

Frankly?  Because you're a nuisance in the OOC sense.  We're not obligated to give you karma if you make our lives difficult, even if you're the world's best RP'er. 

From a producer...

So when I get home in front of a real PC and not a iPhone I'll file a staff complaint.

My feeling is Karma is unfairly meted out, has been for years and probably will be for years.  Shit happens I guess.

Why would being stressful/annoying/making busywork or drama for staff be irrelevant in a decision about staff trust in you? Nobody wants to staff players that make staffing unfun or tiresome. Giving that player more powerful IG options sounds like a recipe for more stress.

Because asking how to get that sweet rp karma everyone else is getting is annoying?  Should I not ask to join clan forums when I get into a clan. I'm so annoying!

And answering a few requests is super hard work? Typing, gets me everytime too!

So this guy is clearly obnoxious.  Is he limited from getting karma because of that?

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 06:47:54 PM
Because asking how to get that sweet rp karma everyone else is getting is annoying?  Should I not ask to join clan forums when I get into a clan. I'm so annoying!

And answering a few requests is super hard work? Typing, gets me everytime too!

Belittling staff on the forum is an example of "what makes you annoying on an OOC level" and greatly reduces any respect anyone could ever have in you, or any amount of trustworthiness they could ever have in you. That's one of the ways to earn karma: don't be an OOC pest or drama-queen on the GDB or elsewhere. The more time you demand the staff spend on you, the more likely they are to say "nope, no karma for you."

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 06:56:52 PM
So this guy is clearly obnoxious.  Is he limited from getting karma because of that?

Yes, and in being a bit sarcastic because of the situation obviously.

Even with all that's been written on karma, all the categories and criteria, it's always boiled down to one question in my mind:

(http://www.runningwithspoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Aladdin-Trust.png)

I dunno. Someone could list off a hundred reasons why it's a great idea, and in some cases I'd still hesitate to get on the carpet.

If I put in a review this would be my reply
" Jihelu, request denied.
The only reason we haven't banned you is because you are Rath's bastard child.
We have taken the liberty of removing four random subguilds from your selection and the ability to priotize agility.
Also you can only play characters above 40"

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 06:34:50 PM
I stopped for gas outside Cedar Point...

I love Cedar Point.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 06:56:52 PM
So this guy is clearly obnoxious.  Is he limited from getting karma because of that?

Yes.  Because karma roles need more staff interaction, usually, and why would they want to put themselves in a situation where they have to deal with someone obnoxious frequently?  Staffing sucks, in my experience...and staffing obnoxious people sucks more.

That's how we need to think about karma.  It's saying they believe you will do your job in an expected manner.  They don't have to supervise you constantly, they don't have to correct you all the time, you'll let them know what they need to know... they can trust you to do your job.

I once had this guy working for me.  IRL.  My team was 16 guys, electronics techs in the old days when we fixed -everything- to a component level. No swapping out boards.  Dig into a computer the size of a chest freezer and find the bad chip, and replace it.  So this guy was always complaining because I was promoting guys who had been working there less time.  

I told him, look, if I send you to change out a light bulb, it's 50/50 if I'll have to send someone else to do it right.  Why should I promote you?  

His response - promote me to an A-tech (midrange) and I'll perform like an A-tech. Since I'm being paid like a B-tech I'll perform like a B-tech.  

So of course he stayed a B-tech until I could get rid of his useless butt.  He was less useful and whined more than the rest of the guys put together.  Why reward that just because he had been sitting around taking up space longer than other people who actually tried to do a good job?

Is it wrong to think Jasmine is kinda of hot?

I think that's a good comparison, Refugee.

And Asmoth, you don't have to think of this as an entirely bad thing, even if the tone was brusque. When staff give you pointers about what you're doing wrong and what they want from you, it's a lot easier to know what to do. You've been given an opportunity to show your improvement and work on your OOC relations with the staff and playerbase. I mean, that's a good thing anyway, so it's not a waste of time to work on that no matter what the result.

After you've demonstrated this improvement, you can then say to staff, "You told me what I needed to do, and I did it." I think they would appreciate that a lot.

Quote from: Beethoven on March 29, 2016, 07:20:48 PM
I think that's a good comparison, Refugee.

And Asmoth, you don't have to think of this as an entirely bad thing, even if the tone was brusque. When staff give you pointers about what you're doing wrong and what they want from you, it's a lot easier to know what to do. You've been given an opportunity to show your improvement and work on your OOC relations with the staff and playerbase. I mean, that's a good thing anyway, so it's not a waste of time to work on that no matter what the result.

After you've demonstrated this improvement, you can then say to staff, "You told me what I needed to do, and I did it." I think they would appreciate that a lot.

The only thing I got outta three requests was "Dont talk to us, don't ask us questions, don't ask for clarification on anything, and be nice on the forums"

And I just nearly ran my car off the side of the road... More when I make cleveland

Quote from: Beethoven on March 29, 2016, 07:20:48 PM
After you've demonstrated this improvement, you can then say to staff, "You told me what I needed to do, and I did it." I think they would appreciate that a lot.

You can never escape your account notes, ever.

I think at this point, he could probably start a new account and end up with more karma in less time than it would take to dig himself out of the hole he just jumped into.

I nailed couches to ceilings on my third character and I'm still sitting pretty with five karma, so I don't think he's too deep in a hole if he actually makes an effort to change his behavior.

I even filed staff complaints and got caught in a big tizzy involving one of my PC's besties getting force-stored.

And I've also been banned from the GDB like, four times? Two of those times involving snide or combative remarks at staff.

Point is, no, he's not doomed and he doesn't really need to make a new account.

QuoteSet karma
to 3, Bit of a whiner, but god knows we don't deduct karma for that. Bumping
karma to 3 to reflect previous access to half-giant. -Sanvean.

I don't believe willingness to argue an issue reflects trust. That reflects submission and complacency. Again, no, I don't think such interactions should be limiting to karma unless you're showing willingness to break game rules or show that you, with a karma role, would actively work against the theme of the game.

We have been told repeatedly to be open and honest on our issues with staff.  To have that be used against you is like...well.  I'm pretty sure that's what the Miranda Rights are all about.  "You don't have to talk because we'll use it against you."  Which is contrary to the emphasis made that such communication is necessary.

I will continue being honest on what I feel or think on changes, ideas, events, or judgments.

Edit:

It should be noted that the above note was from a time period where I was using wish often to complain about events in the game, sending open emails complaining about how things affected my character, and so on.  In other words, it's not about my 'critiques' on the GDB and such; I was being an aggressive pain in the ass, and still received the above consideration and reinforcement that such was not what karma was about, because I was not throwing muck into the game to stomp around with.

Quote from: Refugee on March 29, 2016, 07:16:18 PM
So of course he stayed a B-tech until I could get rid of his useless butt.  He was less useful and whined more than the rest of the guys put together.  Why reward that just because he had been sitting around taking up space longer than other people who actually tried to do a good job?

I don't think that's the attitude we should take with other players.  I certainly hope it's not the attitude staff take toward players.

What I see, though, is that karma is not always about trust, and more about conformity.  That's not to say this is a bad thing, there should be guidelines.  But to throw this all under the umbrella of "Staff trust to do X", that wouldn't make much sense to me, at all.  As Nergal has already pointed out, "staff" is a nebulous idea that is characterized differently throughout the years -- through changes to the code, to the policy, to the documentation.

Quote from: Vwest on March 29, 2016, 07:18:41 PM
Is it wrong to think Jasmine is kinda of hot?

Don't get me started on Disney princesses and how they ruined my adult perception of romance.  :P

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 07:45:49 PM

Quote from: Refugee on March 29, 2016, 07:16:18 PM
So of course he stayed a B-tech until I could get rid of his useless butt.  He was less useful and whined more than the rest of the guys put together.  Why reward that just because he had been sitting around taking up space longer than other people who actually tried to do a good job?

I don't think that's the attitude we should take with other players.  I certainly hope it's not the attitude staff take toward players.

What's the alternative? I don't think people are entitled to karma simply by showing up and hanging around (beyond the already-existing longevity point). Especially if their presence is perceived to be negative, which is how the guy in Refugee's example comes across.

The alternative is to mold better players.  I believe Metekillot claims to have a success story in that department.  I recall accounts from other players I consider to be great contributors to this game:  Desertman, Is Friday, Malifaxis, Majikal, etc.

Yeah, it's weird when you write up a post and see Metekillot has already made your point for you.

I don't see the systems as exclusionary, however. Staff can't really mold or coerce or improve anyone to play differently; they can't train us or be our life coach. The most they can do is say "We're not giving you karma for these reasons," and then the player can decide if they want to change their behavior to meet Staff's expectations. They might even do it subconsciously as they mellow and mature. (Or grow increasingly immature and bitter like myself.)

Going back to Refugee's example, an offer to mold the "player" was made: do your job responsibly and we will promote you to higher-paying, more responsible position. It doesn't make sense to take the "players" word that they'll behave responsibly when they don't have a history of it. It makes even less sense to put them in a position where they could do real harm. Sometimes those gambles are made and pay off, though, and then everyone wins. But those are the exceptions to the rule.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 29, 2016, 08:04:04 PM
The most they can do is say "We're not giving you karma for these reasons," and then the player can decide if they want to change their behavior to meet Staff's expectations.

I understand the karma review is a great place to do these things, but for newer players especially, maybe the karma helpfile can be updated.  I dunno, this is about as super serial as I get.  Seacrest out

It would be nice if we had more guidelines and examples of good roleplay and how to improve and just generally be cool.

And that our biggest rule helpfile wasn't about how you can't rape people no more.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 29, 2016, 07:45:49 PM
What I see, though, is that karma is not always about trust, and more about conformity.  That's not to say this is a bad thing, there should be guidelines.  

Although karma is still subjective (because it is based on human judgment) it is not geared towards conformity. Different staffers see things differently. For that reason they have tried to set up objective milestones.  The milestones are can be attained through a variety of different play styles and direction, as is evident by looking at us as a player base, so there is no central or "model" player that staff want us to conform to. At least not in my opinion.

I do suppose that there are some things unwritten, that influence staff regarding karma, and it would be good to document these things, so that they do not appear to be whimsical.

I 100% agree with Skeelz on this one. Karma works. I have bad account notes from the last two years and it has not caused staff to "have it in for me". They know what they are doing overall guys.

Possible suicide yet again, with [redacted] - attacked a big group of
dune vultures with inexperienced PC. - 6/30/15

I have gained karma since then by solid RP and taking the virtual world into account, and with the understanding not to stat-suicide. Just..play for your fun and to be part of a world, not for Karma hunting, and it comes naturally.

Quote from: Vwest on March 29, 2016, 07:18:41 PM
Is it wrong to think Jasmine is kinda of hot?

10/10, would let her rub my lamp and make her wishes come true.  :P

I only just recently got my most recent karma review so it didn't come with account notes to post, but I'd like to point out something.

I originally started this game sharing an account with my friend. I've had characters stored by staff. I have a lot of iffy account notes, although back then my clan staff used to just email me and tell me what a pain in the ass I was being more than put notes on my account. Most of those emails were justified. I used to respond to every suggestion or request from staff by arguing, often times carrying on the same old arguments for weeks.

I took a break from the game, came back, and tried to be more chilled out. I feel like my RP didn't change, although I definitely did less totally newbish stuff and had a lot more respect for the game structure. I got karma, over time. I got sponsored roles, over time.

I was 100% convinced my account notes were going to hold me back for a very long time. Every time I got turned down for something I assumed that was the reason why, like someone saw my notes and went "oh yeah, remember this girl, she's an idiot."

But that's not what happened. I played a long-lived sponsored role, got a couple more points of karma, was more honest and chill in my dialogues with the game's admins. And surprise, they were chill back.

Seriously, if I can get karma on this game, anybody can. The main key for me was to just stop being such an asshole.

Apart from my verrrry first bit of karma, every single point I have was asked for. I just bugged staff consistently every year or so. I doubt I'd have much at all if I just sat around hoping they'd give it to me and notice how much I'd improved.

Quote from: Desertman on March 29, 2016, 08:21:07 PM

Quote from: Vwest on March 29, 2016, 07:18:41 PM
Is it wrong to think Jasmine is kinda of hot?

10/10, would let her rub my lamp and make her wishes come true.  :P

(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTVP0WpTkomMyFQB9_MTcy_w1ZBjldZYzYMNhI4yAqjp3nWbhecIw)

Ya'll people keep putting up role calls for shit whenever I'm alive.
is this a conspiracy?

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 29, 2016, 08:04:04 PM
I don't see the systems as exclusionary, however. Staff can't really mold or coerce or improve anyone to play differently; they can't train us or be our life coach.

QuoteFrankly?  Because you're a nuisance in the OOC sense.  We're not obligated to give you karma if you make our lives difficult, even if you're the world's best RP'er.

There are a hundred more constructive ways to word that, so as to better direct him towards being the 'ideal' player. You wouldn't even need to use more words, just better and more constructive ones. That is the difference between molding a better player and leaving a player feeling like they're 'enemies' in future engagements.

It's like way back when I checked in to ask about backstab usage.

I was told by a 'producer' that it's fine to use it for hunting if that's what your character is doing. So whenever we were out hunting, I did, until about three weeks later a staff member exploded at me out of nowhere for using it on animals, threatening me with storage if I abused backstab again. That was it, there was nothing beyond some hyper-aggressive threatening and silence.

Let's skip forward and a different character is out with a friend and we run into a gith. So, the other PC is tanking the gith and mine dismounts and backstabs the gith, then proceeds with normal combat until it's dead. We've done this many times before and there has never been an issue. This time, I get a send, "Never use backstab like that again.", to which I asked what exactly I was doing wrong.

I got silence in response.

What was I, a newer player, supposed to take away from that? What could I have possibly been expected to learn from it?

Staff are in the ideal position to mold, train and direct players towards what they expect, they simply choose not to most of the time.

Quote from: Vwest on March 29, 2016, 08:54:48 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 29, 2016, 08:04:04 PM
I don't see the systems as exclusionary, however. Staff can't really mold or coerce or improve anyone to play differently; they can't train us or be our life coach.

QuoteFrankly?  Because you're a nuisance in the OOC sense.  We're not obligated to give you karma if you make our lives difficult, even if you're the world's best RP'er.

There are a hundred more constructive ways to word that, so as to better direct him towards being the 'ideal' player. You wouldn't even need to use more words, just better and more constructive ones. That is the difference between molding a better player and leaving a player feeling like they're 'enemies' in future engagements.

It's like way back when I checked in to ask about backstab usage.

I was told by a 'producer' that it's fine to use it for hunting if that's what your character is doing. So whenever we were out hunting, I did, until about three weeks later a staff member exploded at me out of nowhere for using it on animals, threatening me with storage if I abused backstab again. That was it, there was nothing beyond some hyper-aggressive threatening and silence.

Let's skip forward and a different character is out with a friend and we run into a gith. So, the other PC is tanking the gith and mine dismounts and backstabs the gith, then proceeds with normal combat until it's dead. We've done this many times before and there has never been an issue. This time, I get a send, "Never use backstab like that again.", to which I asked what exactly I was doing wrong.

I got silence in response.

What was I, a newer player, supposed to take away from that? What could I have possibly been expected to learn from it?

Staff are in the ideal position to mold, train and direct players towards what they expect, they simply choose not to most of the time.

That is a bit odd.
Why they'd be mad at you for trying to kill something with a command you can use in combat/initiate combat...I don't know

I find your backstab story very strange.

Quote from: Inks on March 29, 2016, 09:07:12 PM
I find your backstab story very strange.

I wouldn't be surprised if staff policy on backstab has changed over time. I've seen plenty of identical use cases in my time here (last 4 years) or before and never heard of anyone getting in trouble for it.

It's things like this where I think Account Notes and staff-internal communication and reviews become valuable. If there's Staffer who really hates the use of backstab on animals and thinks its twinky, and they're the only one who thinks this way, I would prefer they put a (signed) comment on the characters' account. Then when an account review comes in for a player with such a note, the rest of the Staff (who might be neutral or think its fine to backstab whatever) can come to consensus and potentially dismiss that account note. I'd rather have that than the displeasure of an anonymous staffer messaging me in game yelling at me. When feedback is too immediate or personal is when things become too subjective. Shooting from the hip is not a good way to disciple players. It also seemed to be a lot more common back in the day when staff (by stories told to me) weren't nearly as impartial and deliberative as they are now.

There's definitely room for improved staff communication when it comes to critiques, just as there's room for improved player communication. There always is. Human nature ensures that people on both sides are going to occasionally fall short. In those cases its important for the wronged party to be the better man. Give the other side the benefit of the doubt. Wait a bit, let tempers (on both sides) cool, and then ask for clarification. Have a conversation, not an argument.

I've always been afraid to even try to train backstab because I'm not sure what's acceptable. Stories like this don't help.

Quote from: Beethoven on March 29, 2016, 09:17:27 PM
I've always been afraid to even try to train backstab because I'm not sure what's acceptable. Stories like this don't help.

Unless they changed it, backstab is very powerful when it's trained up.  I remember a clan mate being killed by being backstabbed in a sparring match, with a sparring weapon.

There is no chill with backstabbing, it seems it's always I'M MURDERING YOU! There is no practice.

Do not
For the love of all that is holy.
Backstab in a sparring match.
You can get away with:
Kicking
Bashing
Subduing
Spitting
Biting
But do not backstab
Backstab is essentially, you grab your friend and try to stab their eyes out.
Not "I wanna get gud"

My guess is that there is either more to that story, or there was a clear misinterpretation of what happened by the observing staff member.  Because gith aren't even animals.  I literally cannot find any sense in that scenario.

Frankly, though, it doesn't have much to do with the topic at hand, which kind of suffered a massive derail.

I -do- think Karma is still serving its purpose, but that there will be tweaks that are required to level things out again since options have been a'changin', and I also think the limitation of Karma should be a reflection of ability to use it in a way that's conducive to the game.  Not based on relationships, because 'relationships' is code for 'whether I have respect for your methods or opinions or not', which is still subjective from staff member to staff member, from staff team to staff team.

With a disclaimer that being a prick in communications is never a good idea, but there's a good amount of leeway for if someone is clearly frustrated at a difference in opinion on a matter, as well.

Back at the real PC, Staff complaint filed, no name calling, no sarcasm, no nothing but facts.  Now I will use a bit of sarcasm, I am waiting to see how they justify treating me like shit. /sarcasm.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 09:46:17 PM
Back at the real PC, Staff complaint filed, no name calling, no sarcasm, no nothing but facts.  Now I will use a bit of sarcasm, I am waiting to see how they justify treating me like shit. /sarcasm.

Probably not the best place for this kind of thing. Seems like you're mostly just demonstrating what the initial gripe was about.

Right.  I don't think make it an outright matter of public record will help you much.

Backstab anything you want to backstab. I got my backstab credentials backstabbing kryl.

It doesn't really matter one way or the other.  I am extremely confident that there will be lame reason given as to why that's okay to talk to people like that when they ask a question.

Or there won't be any given and they will just ban me from the GDB again and store my current character.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 10:01:03 PM
It doesn't really matter one way or the other.  I am extremely confident that there will be lame reason given as to why that's okay to talk to people like that when they ask a question.

Or there won't be any given and they will just ban me from the GDB again and store my current character.

...I think here is an appropriate time for me to say I think showing disagreement is an obligation to staff.  That doesn't mean you should try to stomp all over them.  You're not gonna have people in your corner for that, because those are two very different things.

I'll be honest. I think I have mora karma right now then I deserve. 3 years ago, when I had A LOT more time to pay more attention to the game, I was a much better player. Back then, I deserved more karma then I had. Now though, I think I've been half assing the last few years. Regardless though, I've played a complicated role. Totally hated the 'complicated' part of it. Then when the guy deaded, I sent in a karma review request. Upon rereading it just now. I swear to god, it read more like a freaking kudos, then a denial. I found their findings to be relatively spot on, except maybe too polite.


Your Karma Review request has been resolved.

We've discussed your current karma level and feel that we're comfortable with the level that it is on right now. Most Players of ArmageddonMUD cap out from 4-6 karma -- And this isn't to say that you don't have the potential of moving up the chain.

I personally watched [name] over a long period of time, and he had what I call 'Power-itis'. Psions, Sorcs, even Magickers are so difficult to play properly. I think combined with the fact that Psion skills are so difficult to train, and the fact that we as Staff are alerted to every instance of practicing on NPCs, it can lead to a really jilted view of a Player. I had my own Psions get nasty notes about practicing on Gith or other NPCs repeatedly, when really, i was just trying to play the character properly, and didn't understand where all the negative attention came from. For how powerful a Psion might be in social warfare, they aren't really anything compared to a max'd out Ranger or Warrior when it comes to violent harm, and we have few alerts/warnings about those PCs. So I wouldn't want you to think that us reaching out to you with the Psion Documentation at one point, or giving you notes/feedback on your play of a Psion, make it seem like your play of [name] was bad. On the contrary, when I actually monitored [name] up close, I was impressed with the versatility and range of emotion he was capable of, especially when manipulating others. I think he was a good beginning to a great character, that was cut short by the inevitable outing.

Another thing I noticed, though, was how easily he fell into a <a bunch of IC events and things that happened that's too early to mention] This doesn't really play to documentation of the game very well...It's meta-gamey at best. I've also played the Psion on the run, and it can be incredibly dull, but it doesn't mean the Psion's character, paranoia, or fear of others discovering their abilities should suddenly disappear.

You're a good Roleplayer, and I think when you apply yourself, you are capable of great things. I have high hopes that you will move your way up the chain eventually. I would just recommend perhaps avoiding the meta game, the coded skills, and the "power" there as a means to ultimately express your PC. When you don't rely on these crutches, you truly shine.

Eurynomos
Administrator
Armageddon Staff

On the backstab situation, I can recall a time where Staff was discouraging of the use of backstab in anything other than combat situations with another humanoid.  The justification at the time was that "backstab" was to be used as a strike at someone's back, period.  It was designed as a lethal strike to the back and was described as a lethal strike to the back and it would not be accepted as anything but that.

Later, new Staff, and they thought it was fine to use backstab as a "critical strike" mechanic and to be used on animals.

New Staff again and it's switched, only this time because the Staffer in charger of the clan I was in wasn't sure what the official policy was and requested that those in the clan not use it as a "critical strike" until clarification was had.

Really, I just rolled with it.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 29, 2016, 09:20:10 PM

Quote from: Beethoven on March 29, 2016, 09:17:27 PM
I've always been afraid to even try to train backstab because I'm not sure what's acceptable. Stories like this don't help.

Unless they changed it, backstab is very powerful when it's trained up.  I remember a clan mate being killed by being backstabbed in a sparring match, with a sparring weapon.

There is no chill with backstabbing, it seems it's always I'M MURDERING YOU! There is no practice.

You can't backstab with any sparring weapons due to them being piercing not stabbing, please bug it if you find any.

Backstabbing not to kill is a scrub move though. If you are backstabbing you are trying to fatally injure them, whatever you emote. This is kind of going off topic, sorry.

Quote from: Help BackstabBackstab
(Melee Combat)
This skill is a generic term for 'critical strikes' against an opponent. The victim of a backstab is not necessarily 'stabbed in the back'-- the attack could be from any direction. If your character successfully backstabs someone, the target has been 'hit in a vital location,' and will be badly injured, the severity of the injury depending on your character's backstab skill level.

Syntax:
backstab (target)
Example(s):
> backstab raider
Notes:
It is possible, though difficult, to backstab fighting victims. You must always use a 'stabbing' weapon, which is a subset of the 'piercing' category. Backstab is an excellent method of attack if one's presence ought to be unnoticed by soldiers of city-states. (Of course, any ensuing fight can attract attention.) Your character does not necessarily need to be hidden for him/her to attempt a backstab.
Delay: before

I think that I wouldn't really use more than three karma. I've got one, which is enough for two magickers anytime I want, which is good enough for me because I luvs them.

I'm just.... going to go ahead and point out that communication, which is a karma category, probably includes use of the GDB.  Since we use it to communicate and things.

Meanwhile:

I've had staff jump down from the sky at me, in the guise of a mob that had no business being where they were, to yell at me about an OOC thing I had no idea was against the rules because they were citing rules from an area of the GDB I had no access to.  Confusion was had by all, and I was told to follow up in a request.  Did.  A different staffer answered the request with no idea what had gone on.  I argued with staff about it over the request tool (polite but firm) until they realized that I actually had no idea what they were talking about... and still went on to get karma point 8.  Staff are people.  They do sometimes make mistakes.  Hell, I've even had them apologize to me, just like people should when they realize they're wrong.  An apology when you're wrong (and we all get shit wrong) goes a long way.

And you're more likely to get that when you're the one extending the hand first.

Lawyers are pretty universally regarded as combative assholes, but the vast majority of ones I know are scrupulously polite to each other.  Everyone knows who the one or two assholes in each practice area are, and everyone feels bad for the people they represent, because no one wants to deal with assholes and therefore the other lawyers stonewall, close in, close up, and don't offer good settlement deals.  The combative ones have to work twice as hard for half as much.

It's really not about what you say, guys, a lot of it is about how you say it. 

I find it amusing that someone working in the legal system is part of the Armageddon 1%.  It is, somehow, apropos.

I can't copy and paste the whole requests due to ic shit in them about more than just me. I personally have never cared if people know who my characters are, but I've hear that there is some type of rule against saying who you play?

Anyways, I literally looked at the karma help file and listed three points I know I've hit that are in there and why I think I did, shit I wrote a book of a request with reasons why I was asking and thought I deserved it.  My response was the one about gdb and some of shit, which while I feel is a cop out to say the least it was respectful, I don't need to agree with it or it to be in my favor to find it a decent answer.


Then as I said I just asked about why I had never gotten a single rp karma, were they not watching? Was I doing something wrong?

And this producer goes apeshit.  That is not ok, and I feel I deserve an apology.  I purposely word and try to explain things to come off as opinionated but not horribly judgemental or cruel and I feel honestly that I have been forcing myself to have to "be nice" for lack of a better way to put it and yet we have one of the highest levels of staff being crass and rude because I asked a question.

In one way I'm pissed because of how they talk to me while spouting that we need to be respectful and such. On the other hand I am relieved because it just goes to show that the system isn't unbiased or even remotely fair, because if there was any basis on fact the producer would have just answered my question instead of hurled insults.

I recently had another staffer open up a request and say, why did you do X? I explained it and eventually it was closed by the staffer saying thanks for explaining and all was fine.  So I know not all of them are like this one producer, unfortunately. It appears producers are beyond reproach.

Back to Dota.... Have a good night folks.

That was an adventure of emotion

Quote from: Case on March 29, 2016, 05:23:13 PM
but it does make it harder for off peaks and people with inconsistent play to be rated properly.

+1

Quote from: Jihelu on March 30, 2016, 01:01:26 AM
That was an adventure of emotion

Oh I'll readily admit I'm a mix of pissed, disappointed and somehow shocked (even though I guess j shouldn't be by now) that they would go all crazy over me asking clarification on a request.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 30, 2016, 01:12:01 AM

Quote from: Jihelu on March 30, 2016, 01:01:26 AM
That was an adventure of emotion

Oh I'll readily admit I'm a mix of pissed, disappointed and somehow shocked (even though I guess j shouldn't be by now) that they would go all crazy over me asking clarification on a request.

Is this 'apeshit' you mentioned the single line saying that the producer finds you difficult to deal with?

Quote from: Case on March 30, 2016, 01:14:24 AM

Quote from: Asmoth on March 30, 2016, 01:12:01 AM

Quote from: Jihelu on March 30, 2016, 01:01:26 AM
That was an adventure of emotion

Oh I'll readily admit I'm a mix of pissed, disappointed and somehow shocked (even though I guess j shouldn't be by now) that they would go all crazy over me asking clarification on a request.

Is this 'apeshit' you mentioned the single line saying that the producer finds you difficult to deal with?

There was more but I couldn't share the rest.  But yes.  It would be like you asking me the weather and I go.

Know what? I don't like you, you're an asshole, go fuck yourself and stop talking to me.

You would be like, ok psycho and roll out.  Same thing pretty much here.

No wait that's a bad example, say I run a gathering and only certain people can be invited to this gathering and you notice your peers and subordinates are all invited... You contact me and ask if I somehow offended you or if I did something wrong at our last meeting and I let you have it that you're annoying while ignoring your base question.

But yet you still enjoy the functions my company puts on but aren't sure how the hell to proceed when told to fuck off in essence.  You're torn, do you just say fuck it and stop coming to the functions you enjoy or do you risk trying again to figure out what you did to not be invited to the special event?

But I'm sure I didn't have to explain how this works to you Case, you're no dummy, so why are you asking?

This thread is starting to get off track. We're no longer talking about if karma is fulfilling its intended purpose and are instead delving deep into the specific grievances of one player against the staff, the details of which are probably better left to private communications. Asmoth, I'm sure you'll update everyone on what happens with your staff complaint, but for the time being, let's get back on topic.

Quote from: LauraMars on March 30, 2016, 01:25:42 AM
This thread is starting to get off track. We're no longer talking about if karma is fulfilling its intended purpose and are instead delving deep into the specific grievances of one player against the staff, the details of which are probably better left to private communications. Asmoth, I'm sure you'll update everyone on what happens with your staff complaint, but for the time being, let's get back on topic.

You mean what doesn't, but yes, I agree let's get back to the normal topic I suppose.  I'm done.

A quick note on the way out the door:

Those backstab scenarios I mentioned were in like... 2007? 2008? I'd have to go check request dates to be sure.

It isn't a recent thing, nor was it supposed to indicate current staff are, to steal someone elses term, going apeshit on people about backstab. It was to give an example of how you end up with jilted or disgruntled players, rather than players who are open to taking advice or having their behavior corrected.

Prior to those incidents (and some others) I had a really high opinion of staff, including Nyr if you can believe it, and all my communications with them had been very positive.

That was the point of the post. I'm going to go eat panda express and immediately regret it.

Spamcasting should be mentioned somewhere in the helpfiles since its so prevalent, i.e. a large number of players (including myself until corrected) think its okay to sit around for 6-7 game hours casting. (I personally never went past the 4 hour mark but I was still told to stop casting so much.) Its because you can only cast what, twice at full power during each game hour. If some people see it as crafting they decide that 8-10 times a day is good and spend most of their time doing it for lack of interaction and anything else to do. Real easy perception to fall into. Gotta go in a helpfile, a common one like help magick or something.

I moderated a couple of posts. Less targeted hostility, more reasonable discussion.

Don't make me open this, it's irritating to eyes and skin.

(http://i.imgur.com/y2ewNjc.jpg)

I do think this new magick subguild things is really going to cut down on the need/desire to spam spells. Which I do like. That is a huge added benefit that I seriously can appreciate.

Concerning some members of this community:
Karma is a lot more than a checklist of things and 'how you play' inside the game, it's how you benefit the community. If your posts are usually flaming vitriol and rule breaking, prone to moderation and constantly being reported to the attention of staff you can expect some lashback when you show up to staff with your hands out asking for stuff like trust.

I had an employee that was a kick ass installer, unfortunately he caused drama among all the other installers I had and we always had to cater to it, make sure no other installers were on the job at the same time etc. Despite being a great installer, his constant shitslinging was an annoyance, rather than be known for his reliable scheduling, pickups, installing, he got known for all the bad shit that truthfully wasn't all that work related. His shittiness made my life a little shittier. I fired him for it. Why? Because no matter how great of a worker he was, I felt like I had to babysit his big dumb ass.

I thought once of making a 'roleplay' sheet, one page or less, which just stated stuff newbies could use on month one and perhaps year two. Of course some of it would be wrong, but some of it would be taken directly from whole paragraphs of helpfiles, like for example

* Dwarves always think about their focus, always. How people can benefit their focus, how doing something benefits their focus.
* Elves do not share humans' ideas of "possessing" something (specifically, defending the possession of something with all their power for its own sake.)
* Half-giants tend to think more in the short-term for obvious reasons. They may not be able to wait ten minutes for a second piece of candy if they can hold out on eating the first.


Might be wrong with one of those though.

I'm deeply regretting it.

Quote from: Majikal on March 30, 2016, 02:35:46 AM
I do think this new magick subguild things is really going to cut down on the need/desire to spam spells. Which I do like. That is a huge added benefit that I seriously can appreciate.

Concerning some members of this community:
Karma is a lot more than a checklist of things and 'how you play' inside the game, it's how you benefit the community. If your posts are usually flaming vitriol and rule breaking, prone to moderation and constantly being reported to the attention of staff you can expect some lashback when you show up to staff with your hands out asking for stuff like trust.

I had an employee that was a kick ass installer, unfortunately he caused drama among all the other installers I had and we always had to cater to it, make sure no other installers were on the job at the same time etc. Despite being a great installer, his constant shitslinging was an annoyance, rather than be known for his reliable scheduling, pickups, installing, he got known for all the bad shit that truthfully wasn't all that work related. His shittiness made my life a little shittier. I fired him for it. Why? Because no matter how great of a worker he was, I felt like I had to babysit his big dumb ass.

Oh trust me I get it.

But I hardly require anything IC, I might wish up here and there to rp with a npc to do shit that needs done, and if they ignore it (I think only certain staff can animate) I just roll on with life.

I seek out people through boards, ask people at the bar, in the grasslands etc for X and Y and who I should talk to.

I don't ask staff for a fucking thing really in game.  In game I'm a self powered, self aiming RP missile that doesn't even need nor want staff attention in 99.9 percent of the time.

What my problem is, and what I think other people's problem is when they talk about Karma and Trust and etc.

If you are worried about watching me, and needing to hand hold me or however they put it, why do you think I would need that as a Ranger that flys or a ranger that rocks (stone mage joke).  I never needed you on anything before.  I, to my knowledge, have no complaints about responsible use of magick, my only complaints are things that don't really matter, the GDB and some clerical shit in game.  At least as far as I'm aware, because when I ask questions I get told in no uncertain terms to leave staff alone.

Since the beginning of the year, I have had about fifteen legit requests, what I mean by legit requests is things that are out of the normal, like questions, complaints etc.  The rest of mine have been Kudos, suggestions, role applications, karma review, question about the karma review, request about GDB and things that staff has opened up on my account on their own.  With a few leave a clan join a clans in there.  And that's spread over 3 months, almost 4.

So let's go ahead and assume that I am just blowing their inbox up with this MASSIVE (sarcasm) amount of requests...  Let's assume.  Why hasn't there been any mention of it before now?  Before it's convenient to make up a false reason, while being snippy and rude in the same sentiment?  BUT as I said, let's assume that I am over the top with the requests and as I said earlier, typing is oh so hard.

Alright, so I request too much, I also do a few things in the game that are RP oriented, too much.

How, does that affect whether I can play a mage or a half-giant (I probably wouldn't, they are boring to me?

In the game, since the beginning of the year, I have got one staff sends you thing that wasn't like, "Thanks for doing that."

How does the trust of essentially a clerical thing, the typing or not typing of comments on the GDB, have to do with whether I'll play a mage right or wrong?  I think my First or second mage I had someone say I was casting too much, since then no issues.  I balance that shit with other activities and sitting in a temple or cave casting all day is boring as shit anyways.

The two don't correlate logically, so assuming I'm this oh so horrible player, this huge Pariah that is such a problem, yet I never hear of any complaints about what I do while I'm logged into the mud, how does my behavior on the gdb even remotely reflect how good or badly I'll play a mage or mul or whatever?

The simple answer is it doesn't, sure you could make some lipservice and say it does, but honestly it doesn't.  I could totally turn around, become the most fake and polite poster you've ever seen and in six months, it wouldn't change how I would play a mage today or then.  Because even though I don't like a good chunk of you as people, I'll still rp my characters accordingly, I don't care that they are controlled by this guy I can't stand, this chick I hate.  It's irrelevant.

I can make that association, why can't staff?

EDIT: And to clarify, I understand that sponsored roles are going to VERY hard to get with this I don't want staff interaction attitude, and I'm fine with that, because short of a templar and a few nobles that seem to never die.  I'm not interested in sponsored roles really.  Maybe a GMH Hunter Salarri or something, but again, those don't come up enough to even bring it into conversation.

Quote* Half-giants tend to think more in the short-term for obvious reasons. They may not be able to wait ten minutes for a second piece of candy if they can hold out on eating the first.

That description makes me chuckle.  I like it.  /derail

Quote from: LauraMars on March 30, 2016, 02:32:40 AM
I moderated a couple of posts. Less targeted hostility, more reasonable discussion.

I'm sorry, but targeted hostility?

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 30, 2016, 04:40:29 AM

Quote from: LauraMars on March 30, 2016, 02:32:40 AM
I moderated a couple of posts. Less targeted hostility, more reasonable discussion.

I'm sorry, but targeted hostility?

Some people started to dogpile Asmoth.

Normally I'm pretty against any kind of moderation / censorship, but it was definitely necessary in this case.

I guess I did call the guy obnoxious, sorry dude.  It seemed a good time to explore the correlation between karma and GDB behavior, though.

Quote from: Nergal on March 29, 2016, 05:16:31 PM
It's more of a natural cut-off from the way the categories are designed and the way players fit into them (not every player is great at everything or even gets the chance to demonstrate certain criteria, e.g. leadership).

I guess it raises a question: do you need to be a good OOC leader to play a sorcerer, psionicist or nilazi? I don't think the two correlate myself, and I realise there's other categories you can get karma for, but the fact so much of our playerbase is not getting to tick off those criteria I find disturbing. I get why I don't have a higher karma score, there's no mystery there for me. I always just thought I was the exception and that most people who'd been around long enough would have reached that karma 8 category by now. I genuinely believe in the ability of our playerbase to roleplay well, so I do consider that to be a failing of our current karma system.

Personally I think, as flawed as the previous method of "giving karma because staff thinks someone's good enough/because they're a pet or friend of theirs", it had it's strong points that have since been lost. The regimented criteria were a good idea, but I think it's proven to be unsuccessful based on what people have reported in this thread.

Quote from: Lizzie on March 29, 2016, 06:58:57 PMBelittling staff on the forum is an example of "what makes you annoying on an OOC level" and greatly reduces any respect anyone could ever have in you, or any amount of trustworthiness they could ever have in you. That's one of the ways to earn karma: don't be an OOC pest or drama-queen on the GDB or elsewhere. The more time you demand the staff spend on you, the more likely they are to say "nope, no karma for you."

This is really disappointing. The GDB has been an evolution over Armageddon's history. Once upon a time (I believe this based purely on someone who saw things and not as someone who actually knows what the backend was like) that there was minimal correlation between GDB activity and in-game karma awarding. Because as far as I remember there were no user accounts or at least they weren't so easily linked to your in game account (maybe IP addresses were logged and staff took the time to document them. I'm doubtful but it's theoretically possible). Then we got an account system and eventually the ability to post anonymously was taken away. Whether someone's a good roleplayer or earns the trust to roleplay a sorcerer well should have little to no correlation to GDB behaviour. I've never realised that the two had become connected and I am disappointed to hear that they are.

Quote from: MeTekillot on March 29, 2016, 07:31:11 PM
I nailed couches to ceilings on my third character and I'm still sitting pretty with five karma, so I don't think he's too deep in a hole if he actually makes an effort to change his behavior.

It sounds like with enough pestering and adequate behaviour anyone can get to 5 karma though. That doesn't really seem to signify any amount of trust that is afforded you more than is afforded anyone else. It could be that your past behaviour will bar you from ever getting to play a higher karma role.

Quote from: Fathi on March 29, 2016, 08:29:13 PMApart from my verrrry first bit of karma, every single point I have was asked for. I just bugged staff consistently every year or so. I doubt I'd have much at all if I just sat around hoping they'd give it to me and notice how much I'd improved.

See I always interpreted trust as trusting you to play characters of that type well. So from my perspective (and this could have always been wrong) the karma system use to be about awarding people who play their character well with karma, seeing if the trust that was placed in them was justified by them then playing the higher karma role, repeat until they stop demonstrating they deserve that trust. The karma system seems to now be about awarding people karma who tick off one of 7 (possibly 11, I believe some of the categories can be ticked twice) criteria AND be someone who regularly pesters staff for more karma. To me, this is a clear sign that karma has failed. If the surest way of getting more karma is to hassle staff, then the system needs to be reviewed and potentially changed. I can see how the game has evolved into this. How many staff do we have these days? 12? (I don't actually know. There use to be a single page that listed all staff. I've probably missed some). We use to have 15 staff. Now today's staff may be more reliably active, but assuming I'm out by half that's only 3 extra staff than we had back in 2002. I'd like to think Armageddon's playerbase has grown more than 20% over the last 14 years. That shows how hard working today's staff are. It makes sense that the old way of reviewing karma is no longer feasible (also the old way was wrought with problems). But that doesn't mean the new way is good, simply understandable how things evolved to the current point they are.

I think a system where people are awarded karma at a rate of 1 point a year would be better than what we've currently got. If anyone abuses a particular role enough to be docked karma, dock them and let them wait another year before they get to try that role again. If reviewing karma except when players pester you is too difficult to apply consistently, then put some faith and trust into your playerbase and you might be surprised when they return it by actually performing well in these "difficult" roles. You never know what happens when you put faith into people. Of course, there'll always be a few who disappoint. But it seems unnecessary to punish the many for the actions of the few.

I've played a pretty good number of magickers through special app, all the way up to whiran a before they went stupid high karma.  Fire, wind, water and stone.  Which honestly I feel water and stone can be SUPER deadly for various reasons and not once in any of those characters has there been a need to interact with staff.  I never had staff contact me and go, we wanna do some freaky voodoo with you water witch or anything even remotely like that.

Mages don't have a board even on the gdb, they don't even have an ic board across all the temples to spread rumors.  So when ones gdb behavior or lack there of is cited as a reason you can't play something short of a sorcerer or mul.  I just seems like a silly excuse, if I never type another comment on this board and I don't send a single request into the game in the next six months, am I now somehow more suited to play a magicker because I don't interact with you?  I would think that the answer as the twisted system is now would be yes, which is sad.

Somehow, for years we have made a correlation that playing nice on a discussion board somehow infers that you're not going to do all the bad things someone can do with a Mage:

So apparently if you don't have a great gdb relationship you will do the following:

Overly spamcast in your temple.

Use your magick to murder other pcs with little to no reason

Not understand how and where to use your magick

And not be able to wrap your head around the PC first, Mage second ideal.

Damn, seems like all my mages are doomed to fail because I get my posts moderated on the gdb....

If you think that sounds stupid, then you're right, welcome to Karma from early 2000s to now.  Where ooc actions on the boards somehow say you'll be a horrible player of guilds outside mundane, God forbid.

Alright I'm gonna shit shower and head to work, I'll check in throughout the day again and see how if any folks can support this silly belief.

Quote from: John on March 30, 2016, 06:15:22 AM

Quote from: Nergal on March 29, 2016, 05:16:31 PM
It's more of a natural cut-off from the way the categories are designed and the way players fit into them (not every player is great at everything or even gets the chance to demonstrate certain criteria, e.g. leadership).

I guess it raises a question: do you need to be a good OOC leader to play a sorcerer, psionicist or nilazi? I don't think the two correlate myself, and I realise there's other categories you can get karma for, but the fact so much of our playerbase is not getting to tick off those criteria I find disturbing.

To an extent, yes. Leadership is, in part, a demonstration that you won't abuse your power by using the code in an unrealistic manner (for example, forcing your character's bodyguard to help you kill PCs). This level of trust applies to higher-level roles and it is given to those who have demonstrated responsibility in that regard. As far as progression goes, many players can get a point in four or five criteria within 3 years and take longer to achieve the rest. I would say "contributes to the game" and "leadership" are the only ones that rely on chance, because they rely on things like landing submission calls/helper calls/sponsored roles/promotions/etc. Even if you earn nothing in those two categories you can still earn 8 karma, it just takes longer because the second point in a category is harder to earn than the first.

Again, all we do is ask players to ask for a review.

Malifaxis isnt nice on GDB. But he rarely actively trolls, or derails threads. He's bitter and loathesome, and he stinks in his posts. But they usually do have a point. Inside the game though he is ... amazing. One of few players I feel in awe playing with, because he's just so stupidly awesome. I should kill him more often, come to think of it.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 30, 2016, 08:16:21 AM
...  Where ooc actions on the boards somehow say you'll be a horrible player of guilds outside mundane, God forbid. ...

I'm pretty sure it's been said already, a couple of times, but staff trust just isn't about whether you RP well.  A lot of the sponsored roles have to report weekly, the players have to go back and forth with staff on a lot of things, be flexible about altering their concept because of tweaks to rules and the game world that they don't necessarily even know about.  Players of higher karma roles have to be willing to roll with corrections and able to interface with staff about very sensitive issues.

You are clearly not open to correction.

Now, you might not agree with that.  I happen to agree with it, because I'm aware that running a game for a bunch of sensitive nerds like us takes ungodly amounts of patience (having staffed for other games), and a happy staff is a staff that's focused on doing things instead of focused on flipping their keyboards because That One Guy just won't stop arguing with them all the time is at it again. 

Man, I'm going to level with you.

This is coming from someone who had a horrible relationship with staff based entirely upon my admittedly shit-level GDB personality years ago.

The staff here are not the heads of a corporation with an HR department in place. They are a group of people who spend their time governing a game where other people pretend to be elves and dwarves and pretend to ride and fight giant insects.

Your vision of staff is that they should be this: (I know this because for a very long time my vision of what I thought staff should be was exactly the same.)

(http://www.bwgrantparkhotel.com/resourcefiles/mainimages/chicago-illinois-hotel-meeting-top.jpg)
(Ath is the charming good looking black guy. Don't ask me why, he just is.)

In reality, staff is actually this:

(http://www.mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/geek/2011/09/img_0776.jpg)
(Ath is the tall white guy in this picture, again, don't ask me why, he just is.)


Now, I do believe staff has a responsibility to conduct themselves in a civil manner when at all possible. I do feel that sometimes staff fall short of this expectation I have. However, you have to remember, they aren't corporately paid and corporately governed employees. They are a bunch of nerds governing a bunch of other nerds.

Some of them will not be perfect. Some of them will even be immature and spiteful.

Do you know why?

Because they deal with this, every single day: (Our playerbase.)

(http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/04/nerd-cities/images/10.jpg)
(In this picture I'm the bright yellow blonde. Blondes have more fun. RGS gets to the be the one with the blue hair, again, no reason.)


I'm not saying that is an excuse for treating people poorly. What I am saying is that you have to bring your expectations to a level of reality.

In my experience MOST staff have gone out of their way to treat me with understanding and professionalism. I personally feel that is the path that should always be taken, but I also understand that this path will not always be taken, and that in reality, having such an expectation is against the reality of the situation.

I think it's fine to expect to be treated professionally, and when you aren't, sure, file a complaint. However, don't be surprised when your reply is in fact a realistic reply based on the reality of your situation.

Imagine sitting around a tabletop with a bunch of other nerds. If you are the guy who always argues with the DM, and that DM is a super nerd (who has spent 20+ years of their life playing the same campaign, because let's be honest, some of us and some of staff are exactly that guy, I'm one), you're probably eventually not going to have a good time. Also, DM Super Nerd is probably not going to treat you the same way your HR department is expected to and obligated to treat you when discussing the particulars of your 401K.

Play and communicate within the realm of reality in regards to your expectations both with other players and with staff here. Some people you will have to handle delicately. Some people will not handle you delicately, some will be down right rude for no reason. Why? Because we are a huge group of nerds governing other nerds. This is not a recipe for extreme professionalism in every regard.

I'm not making excuses for anyone. I am however just saying, "Man, you can't always take it personally, sometimes, you just have to bend over and take it up the tail pipe and move on because you will not win.".

(I've only ever filed one staff complaint and cancelled it myself after a short while of cooling off and thinking it over. I don't think I was wrong, but my expectations in regards to where they stacked up against the reality of my situation were wrong.)

Quote from: Nergal on March 30, 2016, 08:42:31 AMEven if you earn nothing in those two categories you can still earn 8 karma, it just takes longer because the second point in a category is harder to earn than the first.

And yet most people plateau at karma 4-6. So either people aren't as good as I think they are, people don't care enough to pester staff every six months or people aren't aware that submitting karma reviews is really the only guaranteed way to get more karma.It's not hard to see why people might not be aware they need to submit regular karma reviews if they want karma

QuoteStaff may also award (or remove) karma at their own discretion outside of Karma Review requests.

Quotethose players who over time have demonstrated desirable qualities will 'automatically' gain access to privileged races and guilds.

The karma help file certainly makes it sound like a karma review is only one of multiple ways to get karma. The emphasis (on my reading) is much more on staff using their own initiative to award karma. Given it likely hasn't been updated since the the "ask players to ask for a review" policy came into being perhaps a review of the help file might be a good idea rather then it be GDB-only knowledge.

On the whole "GDB posts will stop/slow the amount of karma you get" policy, there's no actual cOmmunication of this in the website that I can find. On the staff communication page:

QuoteThere are several established means for communicating with staff. These are the 'wish' command, biographies and the request tool.

QuoteShowing good communication with staff (both regular updates via Character Reports, as well as quality of communication) is one of the categories measured in karma decisions.

makes it sound like staff communication, rather than any communication, is all that's taken into consideration. Mentioning the GDB could have the positive effect of people moderating their behavior in the GDB more. At the very least it would make things clearer.

Quote from: Dar on March 30, 2016, 08:46:16 AM
Malifaxis isnt nice on GDB. But he rarely actively trolls, or derails threads. He's bitter and loathesome, and he stinks in his posts. But they usually do have a point. Inside the game though he is ... amazing. One of few players I feel in awe playing with, because he's just so stupidly awesome. I should kill him more often, come to think of it.

he also is ex staff
Driving again will respond to that wall of text in a bit

John don't forget - the way the game is currently set up with karma options, you really only need 5 karma if you want to play the full spectrum. The only remaining 8-karma options - quarter-sorcerer subguild and psionicist - require special applications ANYWAY, even if you have the full 8 points of karma. If you have 5 karma, then you can special app up to and including 3 points higher than 5, which equals 8. So really you only need 5 karma to app those 8-karma roles. There's no need to earn the full 8 karma. If the staff trusts you to roleplay responsibly and you show that you aren't going to demand too much of their time while playing that role, it's just as possible to get the app accepted with 5 karma as it is with 8 karma.

Quote from: Lizzie on March 30, 2016, 09:11:18 AMThe only remaining 8-karma options - quarter-sorcerer subguild and psionicist - require special applications ANYWAY, even if you have the full 8 points of karma.

Wow, I was not aware of that. Is that documented anywhere? My initial search has returned the help file saying 8 karma is required and a post from Nathvaan stating 8 karma OR a special app is required.

Players with 5+ karma certainly can special app up to 8 karma roles, but people with 6+ karma can app the roles they've unlocked normally. There's certain restrictions on that (for example, if there are too many psionicists in the game we can reject an 8-karma player applying to play a psionicist).

Quote from: John on March 30, 2016, 09:16:25 AM

Quote from: Lizzie on March 30, 2016, 09:11:18 AMThe only remaining 8-karma options - quarter-sorcerer subguild and psionicist - require special applications ANYWAY, even if you have the full 8 points of karma.

Wow, I was not aware of that. Is that documented anywhere? My initial search has returned the help file saying 8 karma is required and a post from Nathvaan stating 8 karma OR a special app is required.

It's been the case pretty much since karma was implemented in the game. If you want to play something that requires more karma than you currently have, you have to special app it - and it can't be more than 3 points over your current level.

So if you have 1 karma point, you can special app a 4-karma role. If you have 5 karma points, you can special app an 8 karma role.

edit: Yeah what Nergal said. You can app it - no guarantee you'll get it even if you DO have the karma for it. That's still no different than it ever was.

Quote from: Lizzie on March 30, 2016, 09:21:24 AM
It's been the case pretty much since karma was implemented in the game. If you want to play something that requires more karma than you currently have, you have to special app it - and it can't be more than 3 points over your current level.

So if you have 1 karma point, you can special app a 4-karma role. If you have 5 karma points, you can special app an 8 karma role.

edit: Yeah what Nergal said. You can app it - no guarantee you'll get it even if you DO have the karma for it. That's still no different than it ever was.

Sorry, it sounded like a special app was required regardless of your karma level. I was are of the karma +3 rule for special apps and recently learned of the "we'll reject any app if we feel there's too many people of a certain guild or subguild in the game" (with an ever decreasing threshold of what "too many" means as you go up the karma levels).

If you spec app a 8 karma class and there are too many do you lose your spec app?

Quote from: Jihelu on March 30, 2016, 09:30:54 AM
If you spec app a 8 karma class and there are too many do you lose your spec app?

I believe you only "spend" your application if it is accepted, not if it is denied.

I had one denied recently and it didn't get "spent".

John I was told years ago that psionicists required a special app, no matter how much karma you have, because of certain things that have to be set up manually by the staff. The same with sorcerers. I know people who had templar on their app list, but they also couldn't just regular app it. I mean codedly yes you can, if you have the karma. It'll be an option. But it's not just a matter of staff clicking the "approve" button and sending you on your way to chargen. So they require a special app for these uber-high-level apps, even if you have the karma to play it. That's how it was years ago and as recent as three years ago. I don't know if things have changed since then though.

As one might expect, I have fairly complicated views about the karma system.

1. First, and foremost, I believe it is necessary in a RPI style game to have a measuring stick of player reliability.  Some roles are inherently more powerful, or mechanically equipped, or have the ability to dramatically effect other characters.  If you have these roles, then you need a way to determine who is capable of playing them and not solely in the context of the game.  Some sort of mechanism is required here, and karma is that mechanism.

2. Its also a numbers game.  If staff monitored players for karma every six months on the dot, approximating some numbers . . . say, 300 player base (which is probably low), and 12 staff doing this sort of observation for a week's time each, only one staff per, that's 42 weeks out of the year, vaguely, dedicated to just reviewing karma.  It was pointed out before that multiple staff members handle a karma review, however.  The point of this is not to be accurate to the decimal, but to give the rough approximation of just how much time would be spent.  A lot of time spent not doing anything else at all staff related, and is not a sensible expectation.  Since that's a lot of workload that is potentially better spent building stories and working with players on more fun things, the use of a proactive karma evaluation request seems pretty solid to me.  Last, and perhaps most important, you need a method of evaluation that is as absolutely fair to all who use it as possible.  Player proactivity is this tool.  If you want it, punch the ticket and go for the ride.

3. If you behave in disappointing ways outside the game, it seems to me like that's a sign of a ticking time bomb in the game.  Pure opinion, but I believe malevolent behavior, misconduct,  and attacks rather than discussion(the intended use of this forum for instance) are all indicative of someone who will be problematic when they do not get their way in the game or in a discussion with staff.  Not a veiled dig at anyone, but a topic I've seen floating and putting out my line.

4. It's probably too large.  I do not believe the karma system needs 8 points to it:  that level of granularity is a bit extreme.  It could probably suffice with half.  A new player, who starts with the ability to spec app any esg/low tier magic/delves and half giants is probably the right tact, though as a personal point I'd swap dwarves with delves.  The first tick is viv/ruk/delf/all esg, give them a bit to see if they are playing the roles and learned the basics then notch this one off.  Second tick is hg/krathi/whiran.  HG's are hard.  Whiran/krathi are powerful.  And testing free reign on the 1 pointers is is the real test of responsibility.  Third tick is muls, fourth tick is sorc/psion.  

In conclusion if you structure the character creation system in an RPI where there are more powerful/dangerous options, some measure of determining responsibility is required.  The karma system is that measure and its functional, yet not optimal.

I definitely agree that the range is too wide. It just seems to take insanely long to earn karma. Looking at the notes people have posted, 1/year seems the norm, with often many months before the first point. Rarely is anyone rewarded twice in one year.

It's all but official that the higher ranges of karma take several years to obtain. Think about that. There are roles in this game that staff won't entrust with anybody they haven't vetted for half a decade or more. It seems widely accepted that a year of play is still 1-karma territory. One karma! I don't think there's much that genuinely takes numerous years to learn, unless the player was exceedingly young when they started.

Other games I've played which use a similar kind of RPP model, even with a smaller granularity of perhaps 1-5, tend to regularly award the first point after about a month when the player has shown some decent understanding of the game's premise, and if they continue to play regularly and improve, they'll likely have all but the last one or two points within a couple of years. It felt like a more wholesome system.

It certainly doesn't seem right to me that the options available at 3-4 karma warrant several years of experience and proven worth. Maybe the 7th and 8th point justifies something truly exemplary because they enable such uniquely powerful and/or challenging roles, but I see nothing in especially the first two points of karma that any talented roleplayer shouldn't be able to prove themselves worthy of in, say, three months.

I played a game called Parallel which had like three staff members and they were able to do an RPP review each month. With every clan having its own dedicated staff here, it seems this should be possible. It definitely doesn't seem that there's any need for months upon months of play to earn one's first point of karma, and a couple of years to earn the second. That seems to entirely conflict with what these points actually grant you.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 30, 2016, 08:16:21 AM

Somehow, for years we have made a correlation that playing nice on a discussion board somehow infers that you're not going to do all the bad things someone can do with a Mage:

Damn, seems like all my mages are doomed to fail because I get my posts moderated on the gdb....

If you think that sounds stupid, then you're right, welcome to Karma from early 2000s to now.  Where ooc actions on the boards somehow say you'll be a horrible player of guilds outside mundane, God forbid.

Alright I'm gonna shit shower and head to work, I'll check in throughout the day again and see how if any folks can support this silly belief.

I think the point more is that if you're fostering a hostile relationship on the public forums, you are really hamstringing the ability of someone to put faith in you. I mean - we already have newbies who are intimidated by these forums. I disagree with John - I think the GDB and the community are part of the game. I don't think you need to be active or a big presence on the GDB to get karma, but I do believe that if you are going to participate than you should show respect to other players and staff here. Obviously, to be also be supportive and welcoming to new players.

It's completely analogous to being in the game itself - having a high-powered character means you -really- need to show respect to other players exactly because you have such a cannon in your hands that can wreak havoc. Would I want to hand something like that over to someone whose responses in the majority of settings is volatile, borderline hostile or unsupportive of others? No. I would be worried about something ticking them off, and seeing their character respond in game or go nuka-cola over it. Even if their character background was pacifist F-me mcflufferson, I'd be wary.

Would I hesitate to give a character to someone who wants to play a volatile, murderous character, who I know has a track record of making things fun and interesting for players when they are villainous, and who is polite and open about what and why they do things in game? No - I wouldn't, I'd let them loose and pop some popcorn.

====

On a personal note, Asmoth - I would say to swallow some of that and just keep marching on. I eat a lot of shit in my day to day life, and the best thing to do is just keep spooning it in. Like, it sucks, it feels terrible, but it's better to just take it as a road bump.

If you feel a staff member was belittling or didn't respond in a serious manner to you, then by all means, file that complaint, you deserve to be treated respectfully too. But don't start firing barbs everywhere because you feel shut down by 'being annoying'. I sort of feel that there probably wasn't serious offense meant, but text communication is really notorious for implications of emotions and feelings not meant to be implied.

If I was in the same situation I'd say (to myself), 'well screw this, I guess I've got to show them', buckle down and create an awesome character. Flood my bio sheet with bios, do polite reports to clanned and unclanned staff, keep my nose super clean, try to be moderate on the GDB and then in a bit send in a request - it doesn't even have to be a karma request, that says, "Hey guys. I have really been trying over the past X months to do better and address: 1) 2) 3). Can I get some feedback on how I'm doing? Where can I focus my efforts?"

===

I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of the guild revamping process. Maybe it'll affect karma levels even more than we've already seen.

Personally, I don't have any major issues with the current karma system - it gives more options to get 8 karma than before, all possible points combined. Under the old system it was difficult to know what you were doing well and where you were lacking if staff didn't tell you. I don't think being off-peak is much of a problem either, but it depends on what kind of roles you play. Communication is key and it's always good to do what you do well, with the occasional foray into unknown territory role-wise. That said, it's not an ideal system but I'm not sure what should replace it.

Also, don't forget that most sponsored role calls don't require karma.

Warsong, not trying to bust your chops, but I poked at Parallel a little in its time.  It was a smaller game and the auditing of rpp was probably more swift, enabled by that size differential.  In a system where every staff can't get to know every player on a relatively personal level through proximity observation, I'm a pretty big proponent of prolonged and thorough observations.  Its a bridge to a more compact system argument in my mind, though, and takes some of the tension and confusion out to boot.

It also had the benefit of a number of established players who had RPP carrying over from Atonement keeping up to 2 of their RPP points.

Secondly, you actually spent RPP for races, so a monthly review was warranted because it was a renewable (hopefully) resource. RPP was also used for different things there, as more so races and thus stat boosts (rather than arm, where most of the races are more or less-pro/conned or hampered by other rp things), or for skill boosts starting off, rather than skills, roles or classes.

I always was so leery of spending RPP there, I'd thought I'd never ever ever get it back, haha.

So it turns out I have a clean slate account notes wise.
Which is strange.

I'm sure someone would have noticed...all the killings....all the murders....ALL THE BOMBINGS!
I mean, they're right.

QuoteSeems fairly clear, to me.  Clean yourself up on the GDB and things may change.  Keep walking the line between trolling/flaming on the GDB and it won't.

If you are unwilling to change your behavior, or honestly cannot tell what you're doing wrong despite us laying it out repeatedly, perhaps stop posting.

Nessalin
Producer
Armageddon Staff

So I am not utterly shocked that my near Nyr level response from that staff member is totally disregarded and this staff complaint was treated like a karma review complain.  Which it wasn't.  To be clear, being told no isn't the issue, not providing feedback in a constructive manner as to why and how the gdb overrides every karma category in the game for me, while others get RP karma and other innocuous easy karma and I'm sitting here playing with desert elves and rangers who vivadu touched in the bad place.

Lost all faith, not that there was much in the first place.

Pls stop

Karma is a contentious topic. We currently have a list of criteria, coupled with some staffside parameters on these criteria that detail how we award karma right now. This was done with the best intentions, in an effort to make our process as objective as possible.  When reviewing karma we ask for feedback from multiple staff members in an effort to get a variety of information and knowledge about a player, coupled with looking through request tool submissions and yes, sometimes GDB posts.

Given all of that it is still a subjective process because the decision is made by people. We do not have any plans to change that.

What we are looking at is our Karma structure overall and what we want to use moving forward.  This is a complex question as we need to take into account all of the changes we are planning with guilds.  However, we are looking at this, and changes to this system are likely. We hope that the changes will make things simpler for staff and player alike.

There'll be more news on this at a later date.

Thank you for the insight, Adhira. I look forward to seeing what you guys have in mind.

That's awesome Adhira, but right now I am more interested in how the staff of the game can talk to players anyway they want.  For the record I love all the changes to sorc, to magick.  I dislike the relation of the gdb to supposedly have some impact on what I play or don't.  I can loath you on the gdb and still play phenomenally with you in game.  I would think you guys understood the difference between ic and ooc, on a rp game.

Quote from: Jihelu on March 30, 2016, 01:54:09 PM
Pls stop

+1

Asmoth - I'm sorry that you are unhappy with your recent correspondence with staff. I understand that you feel that you were not spoken to with the level of civility deserved. I agree that staff should keep their tone and comments at a professional and courteous level, that is the standard that I try to uphold in all my communications.

Where we don't agree is that the GDB should be divorced entirely from having any impact on karma levels.  Karma is about a multitude of things, trust is one word mentioned. Trust in your ability to be responsible within the game, when using code, when playing a role. Trust that you can communicate with staff, that you can participate in the community both in game and out of the game in a manner that is appropriate.

We allow that there can be lapses, there can be mistakes. Staff and players alike have their moments when they may not present themselves in the best way, or their wording may convey things in a way that was not intended.

At the end of all of this however, the decision on karma levels belongs with staff. Just as we reserve the right to make decisions about who can play the game we also reserve that same right in allocating karma. Sometimes all the categories being met will not result in the karma you feel you deserve, but in the karma that staff feel comfortable with allocating to you.

Quote from: Adhira on March 30, 2016, 02:31:51 PM
Asmoth - I'm sorry that you are unhappy with your recent correspondence with staff. I understand that you feel that you were not spoken to with the level of civility deserved. I agree that staff should keep their tone and comments at a professional and courteous level, that is the standard that I try to uphold in all my communications.

Where we don't agree is that the GDB should be divorced entirely from having any impact on karma levels.  Karma is about a multitude of things, trust is one word mentioned. Trust in your ability to be responsible within the game, when using code, when playing a role. Trust that you can communicate with staff, that you can participate in the community both in game and out of the game in a manner that is appropriate.

We allow that there can be lapses, there can be mistakes. Staff and players alike have their moments when they may not present themselves in the best way, or their wording may convey things in a way that was not intended.

At the end of all of this however, the decision on karma levels belongs with staff. Just as we reserve the right to make decisions about who can play the game we also reserve that same right in allocating karma. Sometimes all the categories being met will not result in the karma you feel you deserve, but in the karma that staff feel comfortable with allocating to you.

Well, a civil and well worded response.  Thanks for your time and explanation, I can only hope that other staff can learn by your example.

Have a nice day.

Quote from: Asmoth on March 30, 2016, 02:22:51 PM
I can loath you on the gdb and still play phenomenally with you in game.  I would think you guys understood the difference between ic and ooc, on a rp game.

Why would anyone tolerate a customer like that?  Think back to this woman who demanded you show up immediately to fix her simple technical issue that you could have resolved by phone.  She then demanded to pay you by check instead of credit card.  She then tried to cancel the charge against the credit card.  Are you going to serve that customer again?  She loathed you and the (in her mind) menial task you do.  The answer is probably?  Hell no.

With the always popular unless (a) I'm paid in advance (A LOT) and (b) I need the $$$ enough to be worth the grief.

So now think of yourself as that customer, calling you (Staff) with a list of demands for roles and karma, knowing that you shitpost them at the slightest provocation.  and know that neither (a) nor (b) applies.  How are you affecting their desire to serve you as a customer.

Well honestly, I serve them by being awesome in their game and providing enjoyment to the rest of you.  It's almost like charity really.

Aside from my Kadian Merchant where I shit the bed because I didn't know how to play a Kadian that well.  I haven't failed at any role, except maybe to a random Mekillot eating me.

Forget it, whitt. It's whinertown.

Quote from: Adhira on March 30, 2016, 01:59:08 PM
Karma is a contentious topic. We currently have a list of criteria, coupled with some staffside parameters on these criteria that detail how we award karma right now. This was done with the best intentions, in an effort to make our process as objective as possible.  When reviewing karma we ask for feedback from multiple staff members in an effort to get a variety of information and knowledge about a player, coupled with looking through request tool submissions and yes, sometimes GDB posts.

Given all of that it is still a subjective process because the decision is made by people. We do not have any plans to change that.

What we are looking at is our Karma structure overall and what we want to use moving forward.  This is a complex question as we need to take into account all of the changes we are planning with guilds.  However, we are looking at this, and changes to this system are likely. We hope that the changes will make things simpler for staff and player alike.

There'll be more news on this at a later date.

Back on topic (FFS), but Adhira I'm curious. Will Karma changes come after Guild and Subguild changes? That's what I would assume.

I don't have a timeframe yet for when we might implement the karma change. It is possible it could happen before the guild changes are complete, but there are a few different things we have to consider, so it'll just be a matter of making sure we've considered all of them.

Adhira, thanks for the response.  It's good to know the staffing team are going to shine a light on the karma system and tweak it as necessary with the new changes.

Idea: Start an "Asmoth Group Therapy" thread in Ask the Players and those who are interested can provide some constructive criticism on this subject to hopefully help you see where staffs bias against you is coming from.

Quote from: Adhira on March 30, 2016, 01:59:08 PM
Karma is a contentious topic. We currently have a list of criteria, coupled with some staffside parameters on these criteria that detail how we award karma right now. This was done with the best intentions, in an effort to make our process as objective as possible.  When reviewing karma we ask for feedback from multiple staff members in an effort to get a variety of information and knowledge about a player, coupled with looking through request tool submissions and yes, sometimes GDB posts.

What we are looking at is our Karma structure overall and what we want to use moving forward.  This is a complex question as we need to take into account all of the changes we are planning with guilds.  However, we are looking at this, and changes to this system are likely. We hope that the changes will make things simpler for staff and player alike.

The karma system is way better now than it was 5 years ago, when Karma was really just a form a staff kudos. "I like that thing you did - here have karma." Where-as now karma is clearly defined both in how you attain it and what it is awarded for. The karma review model is good, and you should feel good.  

That being said, where it's at now does look a little "achievement"-y. Personally I never have and never intend to play a claned leader, so of the 7 criteria to gain 8 karma, I'm down to just 6 for 8... Bad Skeels probably won't get the mage point ever, unless "Proven understanding of magick and its place in the game world" can be interpreted as "Magcik's place in the world is at the point of Bad Skeels' blade!" (Like that? ;) )

It would be nice to have some more categories, or more information on what each means. Does logevity mean having a 6mo or 1 year character? Hours played? How about just being a long time player, which many people seem think think deserves consideration as well?  Leadership - do I have to be Sarge? Or can I just involve other players in my plotz?

Edited to add: In light of recent events, maybe a "GDB / Community" category would be good. 

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on March 30, 2016, 03:28:19 PM
That being said, where it's at now does look a little "achievement"-y.

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on March 30, 2016, 03:28:19 PM
It would be nice to have some more categories, or more information on what each means. Does logevity mean having a 6mo or 1 year character? Hours played? How about just being a long time player, which many people seem think think deserves consideration as well?  Leadership - do I have to be Sarge? Or can I just do my best to involve players in the things I'm doing?

Doesn't that make it even more achievement-y?  Not that I disagree.  I think there should be more criteria stipulated for both the awarding and denial of karma.  I also think the ranges should be shortened, and the highest options should be spec app and regular subguild only (mul, sorc and psion).

I got my Natick understanding karma for a mundane character. You can also earn 2 points per category (besides longevity)

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on March 30, 2016, 03:36:46 PM
Doesn't that make it even more achievement-y? 

True. But I guess my reasoning was that with more categories and/or more ways to achieve them, I could get my 8 achievements without having to sacrifice my play style. You know those achievements that are just there for 100%-ers to grind? (Looking at you Steam Final Fantasy 7's "Earn 99,999,999 gil" achievement.) Lets not have those...

I agree.  I think it should be reasonable for every play style to feel successful at this game and play dem roles with time and effort.

Since this is a discussion about karma, I'll throw in that I got every single point of karma from playing sponsored roles.  I know staff appreciates people applying for and carrying out those roles, and it goes a long way to building trust.  So, take a shot, and if it doesn't fall, keep hacking at it.  I know there's a rolecall open right now.  All they can do is say "no", right?

I do also agree that people who don't play those kinds of roles should have avenues to create that proverbial trust.

Pardon the double post.   ;D

The worse staff can do is say "No" and possibly even tell you why.
The best they can do is give you the roll.

The absolute worse is you lose 8 karma and get made into Guy Fieri.

You better not be talking shit about Guy Fieri.

I will cut you, motherfucker. I will cut you deep.

Quote from: Vwest on March 30, 2016, 05:24:37 PM
You better not be talking shit about Guy Fieri.

I will cut you, motherfucker. I will cut you deep.

The only guild I have listed on my fucking arm client is "guy Fieri"
What does this even mean?

Quote from: Vwest on March 30, 2016, 05:24:37 PM
You better not be talking shit about Guy Fieri.

I will cut you, motherfucker. I will cut you deep.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/GBMvDRj0qHIs/giphy.gif)

Quote from: Lizzie on March 30, 2016, 09:41:52 AM
John I was told years ago that psionicists required a special app, no matter how much karma you have, because of certain things that have to be set up manually by the staff. The same with sorcerers. I know people who had templar on their app list, but they also couldn't just regular app it. I mean codedly yes you can, if you have the karma. It'll be an option. But it's not just a matter of staff clicking the "approve" button and sending you on your way to chargen. So they require a special app for these uber-high-level apps, even if you have the karma to play it. That's how it was years ago and as recent as three years ago. I don't know if things have changed since then though.

Huh. In that case, outside of GCP I'm not really sure I understand the point of having karma 8 in the system. Perhaps it's a holdover from when these characters weren't so complicated (assuming that time ever existed)? Maybe the helpfiles could be updated to warn people sorcerer and psionicists always require a special app. Because that is not what I, as someone who doesn't have the karma, would perceive them as and if I ever were to get karma 8 I'd be more than a little disappointed had I not learned of it ahead of time.

Quote from: Adhira on March 30, 2016, 01:59:08 PMwe are looking at this, and changes to this system are likely. We hope that the changes will make things simpler for staff and player alike.

That's all anyone can ask. Thanks.

Quote from: John on March 30, 2016, 05:44:50 PM

Quote from: Lizzie on March 30, 2016, 09:41:52 AM
John I was told years ago that psionicists required a special app, no matter how much karma you have, because of certain things that have to be set up manually by the staff. The same with sorcerers. I know people who had templar on their app list, but they also couldn't just regular app it. I mean codedly yes you can, if you have the karma. It'll be an option. But it's not just a matter of staff clicking the "approve" button and sending you on your way to chargen. So they require a special app for these uber-high-level apps, even if you have the karma to play it. That's how it was years ago and as recent as three years ago. I don't know if things have changed since then though.

Huh. In that case, outside of GCP I'm not really sure I understand the point of having karma 8 in the system. Perhaps it's a holdover from when these characters weren't so complicated (assuming that time ever existed)? Maybe the helpfiles could be updated to warn people sorcerer and psionicists always require a special app. Because that is not what I, as someone who doesn't have the karma, would perceive them as and if I ever were to get karma 8 I'd be more than a little disappointed had I not learned of it ahead of time.

Quote from: Adhira on March 30, 2016, 01:59:08 PMwe are looking at this, and changes to this system are likely. We hope that the changes will make things simpler for staff and player alike.

That's all anyone can ask. Thanks.

The why (as far as I know - again this is only what I'd heard, second-hand):

In order to special app something above your karma level, it has to be no more than 3 points higher. If they removed 8 karma and made it 7, then anyone with 4 karma could special app a psionicist. So basically - karma points 6, 7, and 8 exist only to limit who/how many can submit special applications.

If you have 8 karma you can make sorcs and psionicists through the character creation at the main menu.  We can deny them if we feel there are too many in-game, etc.

Quote from: Rathustra on March 30, 2016, 05:27:45 PM

Quote from: Vwest on March 30, 2016, 05:24:37 PM
You better not be talking shit about Guy Fieri.

I will cut you, motherfucker. I will cut you deep.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/GBMvDRj0qHIs/giphy.gif)

Watch it!  Guy Fieri comes from Ferndale,  in Humboldt County.  We don't get mad here, we just get even.

Don't forget 'high.'

So the norm for what I am seeing, Is that after about 1 year give or take a few months.
(Basically between 9-15 months)
Most people have earned their first point of karma. And then they spend the next few months playing some more and getting given another one.
Followed by the various criteria being met all at once basically and the points sort of trickling in after that until inevitably you get an 8-karma player.

And yet I look at the GDB and very few people who I thought had major karma (Dman for one) turn out to only have relatively mediocre levels. And then there is the few people who have none despite having played for years. Now I will use myself as an example for the no karma/years of playing group.

I have had my issues. I have a few bad account notes, I admit I understand the fact they are there. Some arent actually 'bad' notes to be fair, but they are there. I have sent karma requests I think three times now. And each time I have been told something along the lines of me not being a responsible rper. And to be entirely fair on that regard I wasnt at first. I would like to think I am now though. Making a large amount of improvement, on all the aspects I was called out on being irresponsible.

So I now come to my actual point for posting. Should karma be based only on responsibility pure and simple. Or should it be based on responsibility and improvement, I have read plenty of times that people say they dont feel they deserve karma when they probably do but dont technically meet the criteria for getting any.

Example:
Johnmcrandomguy: He was really and truly terrible at rp when he first started. His writing style was impeccable and he just bullshit his way through it despite being a fairly mediocre rper, having very little understanding of the docs because he never read them. But over time his rp quality did improve by a substancial portion and in the end he got 8karma.

Johnmcsuperrandomguy: Was an experienced rper of many years when he came to arm. He understood the docs fairly well and could do all of the things pretty good. He wasnt noticed because he never did anything really way out of the ordinary. He got maybe 1 or 2 karma in the same time as the first guy.

Now that I write those both out and read them over rather than think it. I say both deserve karma. But do they deserve equal amounts?

My answer, I think the first guy deserves slightly less karma simply because he never read the docs. But he deserves slightly more because he improved so much.
The second guy deserves more because he understands the setting, less because his improvement isnt as obvious on the surface.
Thoughts people?

I'd be curious to know how you'd improved.  If you've gone literal years of playing and had three karma reviews turned down for that first point of karma, you must've done something pretty bad in my mind.

Quote from: SuchDragonWow on April 02, 2016, 07:54:34 AM
I'd be curious to know how you'd improved.  If you've gone literal years of playing and had three karma reviews turned down for that first point of karma, you must've done something pretty bad in my mind.

It depends on when he asked for the reviews. If he asked for them before the admin created an actual set of standards, then he might simply not have pleased the staff who was doling the points out at  the time.

If he asked for them after admin created the set of standards, then he certainly might've been doing something pretty significant to warrant a rejection of karma points.

If it's the first case, he should request a new review. If it's the latter case, he should check out the results of the most recent one or two, and see what, exactly, is needed to improve.

Quote from: Hauwke on April 02, 2016, 06:33:35 AM
So the norm for what I am seeing, Is that after about 1 year give or take a few months.
(Basically between 9-15 months)

You do not have to wait 9-15 months to get your first point of karma.  If you can play a character who stays alive longer than a certain time (not sure how long yet I think it is 1 year IC), then you can get a point for longevity.  I reckon people just do not ask.

When I first started playing I did not know about karma, or sending in player reports.  I just had FUN and learned along the way, including getting in trouble on a few occasions. I got karma when I asked to play a d elf after I had a PC I managed to keep alive for a while.

I would encourage folks to ask. 

Food for thought at least. Thanks for the responses. The actual issue was for the most part poor grammar etc and a few other things that have been so far as I have a say on the matter fixed.
Anyways thanks for the responses again.

I got a point of karma and I've been here a year.
And I asked for it.
And I was here less than a year because I took a few months break.

The new karma system seems to be a huge improvement over the old. I started playing around 2001 and some of the things I saw back then were simply mind boggling. There was little to no valence.

I do not believe that this game is conducive to every RP style in terms of staff reward and engagement. If you're all about RP at the expense of posting in the forums or trying to talk to staff, you're always going to be at a huge disadvantage. Being a good player should be enough. It is what it is.