Armageddon General Discussion Board

The Preface
I'm going to preface this by saying that, in about a decade of playing Arm, I've pulled maybe 12 PKs. Maybe 20 tops. And that's distributed between abusive homicidal assholes, true neutral mercenaries, and genuine good guys pushed into a corner. I usually like to play indies, keep to myself, not bother anyone, and explore. At a rate of 1-2 PKs a year, I think it's safe to say that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a bloodthirsty player.

The Background
However, in the last 2-3 years I've been playing... there just hasn't been a lot of visible conflict. Some flairs up from time to time, to be sure. But it's nowhere near as frequent and visible as it used to be. I'm not even putting that statement up for debate - it's purely factual. It's been at least 6 months since there was a new rumor about a raider. It's been almost 2 years since there's been a sorceror around, amassing an army of rogue 'gickers. It's been about 5 years since there was a tribe of raider elves.

This may be a jaded point of view, but when I look around I see lots of powerful, long-lived PCs hell bent on getting along with one another. I honestly think there are more characters around these days with 1 or 2 IRL years played on them than I've ever seen before in my Arm career. A 2 RL years played character used to be a mythical being. Now I can name 5 off the top of my head. In a way, that's kind of a cool thing. But at the same time I long for the days when that was next to impossible to pull off. (Because there were people around who were able and willing to kill you, pretty much no matter who you were.)

The Question
So with that viewpoint established, my question is this; is it wrong that I'm feeling the urge to play conflict focused PCs? (Or the sincere wish that others would.) I'm not saying that my next 3 characters are going to be chaotic evil, smile-scarred rinthis with the names Joker, Jokur, and Jokar. I'm talking about characters with backgrounds, goals, focuses, or personalities that would lend quite naturally to conflict. An escaped slave with a chip on his shoulder. A desperate raider, willing to hold people over for a skin of water. A dwarf hell bent on taking out Templarate stoolies.

Basically is it wrong for someone to dedicate a few characters to making the world a more dangerous place? To play the villain. To set out with the goal of fucking shit up like the Step Brothers. I'd especially like to hear some staff perspective on this, as I remember an incident a couple of years ago where I rolled up a Tuluki dwarf whose focus was to kill magickers, and was declined with a reason stating either "we don't allow focuses that are designed as an excuse to PK" or "all focuses must involve fluffy kittens." I don't remember which, and honestly can't tell the difference.


Addressing the opposition (Jack's a Mindworm!)

Before we begin, I just want to try address a few sure-fire opposition topics that I consider to be somewhat beside the point of what I'm asking.

Just because you don't see the conflict, doesn't mean it's not there.
We get it - you watch Game of Thrones. I'm not saying that the conflict isn't there, I'm saying yes, I want to SEE the conflict. I want it to be a visceral part of the game again. I want my hands to tremble over the keys, barely able to type as I proceed through a scene that can only end one of two ways. That's the Armageddon experience I once fell in love with. Not the indie merchant clan simulator I'm currently seeing.

Ur going 2 make every1 b twinks!
Nope. I want well played characters with motive and balls. I want to feel these scenes. I want the Hound to come into the bar and eat all my fucking chickens. For the sake of this question, lets pretend that all of the conflict I'm advocating will be warranted. It will be a raid where the victim chose the "or else" option. It will be a dispute that leads to threats that leads to both players agreeing to meet outside the gates at dawn. If you would like to discuss good or bad raiding tactics, there are many threads that have done that. Rez one, or start a new one.

Killing people doesn't add to the game. Why not try to build stuff?
My thesis states that there are enough people doing that already, and not enough players actually adding to the danger aspect of the game.
And, as always,
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0b/15/a8/0b15a8923f57cfccec49232c25000f04.jpg)

I agree, 100 percent. Too may do-good heroes and not enough grit. Too many players would rather sit around and mudsex or spawn conflict around... mudsex. I've been disappointed in the conflict ig for awhile now and it's disheartening to even attempt to be a baddy in a world full of hero-minded folks. Ya buncha tree huggin pussies.

do it. i will fuck you up. and if you fuck me up, i'll roll a character that will help you do the fucking up of others.

It's hard to be a bad guy.  You tend to die early, and die often.

The CGP and skill branching systems reward people who don't do that.

Quote from: Synthesis on July 06, 2015, 11:52:49 PM
It's hard to be a bad guy.  You tend to die early, and die often.

The CGP and skill branching systems rewards people who don't do that.

Totally agree. Especially in the current climate. It hasn't been a year quite yet, but the last player I personally saw go out of his way to cause small conflicts on a large scale was brought down by no less than a combined effort from The Legionaire, House Kurac, and the Byn. All that for what was probably a 5 day warrior... yeah...

The unfortunate side of the situation is that you can either do it effectively, or you can do it in a way that not everyone will be mad at. You could easily roll up a you-know-what mage and gank everyone you happen to come across, and then some you don't. But that would be lame for all parties involved, and pretty unfulfilling to boot. On the other hand if you go with something "fair" like a ranger, you'd need dump at least 10 days played into it, and even then you would only be menacing to newbie salt grebbers. Also, not the desired effect.

Quote from: MeTekillot on July 06, 2015, 11:44:44 PM
do it. i will fuck you up. and if you fuck me up, i'll roll a character that will help you do the fucking up of others.

(http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/593/304/e35.jpg)

I feel like this is a needed conversation, if at least because I've been attempting to play a downright scoundrel and an obvious, crude, sometimes-funny-but-mostly-asshole asshole.  I've had to dial down the asshole and turn up the funny just to reasonably get by.  It's worth a consideration, I think.

I wonder if it's coincidental that the "Age of long-lived PCs" started (apparently) at about the same time that Whirans were bumped from a 4 karma to a 6 karma class. I suspect it isn't. Whirans certainly seemed to be the top predator for killing off long-lived PCs, albeit in one of the derpiest ways possible.

What I'm trying to say is, killing long-lived PCs is kind of tough. Much tougher than it is for them to kill you right back. So not only does it take varying levels of contrivance for wanting them dead, it takes a lot of work to acquire the ability to see them dead.

I'd say we have anywhere between 5 and 10 PKs per week on a regular basis. Looks like in the 5 to 7 range over the past week, based on runlogs and PK reports. Is that not enough? That's around 2 to 4% of PCs dying to other PCs per week; or around 10% per RL month on the conservative side of the estimate.

One long-lived character PK is worth ten 2-day chalton-booted-scrub PKs. No one misses them. Leave characters alive too long and the game calcifies around them.

Quote from: Talia on July 07, 2015, 12:16:17 AM
I'd say we have anywhere between 5 and 10 PKs per week on a regular basis. Looks like in the 5 to 7 range over the past week, based on runlogs and PK reports. Is that not enough? That's around 2 to 4% of PCs dying to other PCs per week; or around 10% per RL month on the conservative side of the estimate.

That's actually really impressive.  If we all do our part, who knows what we can accomplish!

How many PKs a week that don't happen in the 'rinth, though?

"bring it on, bitch" was only acceptable answer. i'll be at the span, m8.

Quote from: MeTekillot on July 07, 2015, 12:18:25 AM
How many PKs a week that don't happen in the 'rinth, though?

The 'rinth sees its share, but so does the wilderness, and apartments, and jail cells, and clan compounds. This past week's PKs took place in a variety of areas.

Quote from: TheWanderer on July 07, 2015, 12:18:46 AM
"bring it on, bitch" was only acceptable answer. i'll be at the span, m8.

Yeah, my bad. I'm the one.

I wish combat wasn't such a grind. I'd be more more willing to engage in warmurder then.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 12:23:29 AM
I'd be more more willing to engage in warmurder then.

Make sure you pack a lunch.

Lots of people want to play antagonists, but they don't want to play antagonists.

A lot of people want to play antagonists, but not play antagonistic characters.

I'll be honest and say I really prefer unleashing anger and hatred and RIPANDTEAR emotes on NPCs. PVP runs too high a risk of getting personal.

Edit: plus I've never had an NPC turn down consent for being slowly eviscerated.

I'd like to see more PKs that aren't the goodie brigade murdering off someone who is trying to be the bad guy (like what you're talking about doing) ;)

I don't think it's wrong to create a character with the mindset and background that will cause conflict, but I do think that making a character specifically for the reason of going out and killing other players is bad, because that's an OOC motive.

The dwarf with the focus of killing magickers is a grey area.  

Quote from: Mordiggian on July 07, 2015, 12:30:37 AM
Lots of people want to play antagonists, but they don't want to play antagonists.

8)

p.s. I'm on break from antagonist play for now. I've been doing that for 2 years.

My general sense of PKs is that you're a lot more at risk if you're an annoying, useless asshole. If you're not an annoying asshole, or if you're a useful asshole, then you're likely to live. It's rare that a PK happens while I'm on the port and watching that I don't say, "Yep, that dude/ette had it coming."

I find that the biggest barrier to long-term, interesting conflict that ends in murder is that a lot of PCs just disappear into the desert. It's so sad to make someone your new #1 enemy and then never get to see/kill them. Making an enemy is more of a commitment than making a sex partner.

Turn off crimcode in the cities. You'll see "Enemy>PK" turnaround reach levels similar to "look>mudsex".

I'd love a crim code that worked only on the eye-sight range of the nearest soldier NPC, and that only soldier NPCs that could see you would even be part of that code. So if it is night and a soldier is in the next room, they're coming, but if he's two rooms away, he's not, and during the day, if that soldier is three rooms away, he's coming, but if it's four, he's not. If he loses sight of you while running you down, he's out of the mix. Any soldier he ran past while chasing you also chases you.

Quote from: Talia on July 07, 2015, 12:47:02 AM
Making an enemy is more of a commitment than making a sex partner.

This too.  Everyone wants an enemy.  Present yourself as wanting to be one and you'll have lots of takers.  Doesn't tend to equate to a long life.  Unless you have a crew backing you.

Quote from: Talia on July 07, 2015, 12:21:33 AM

Quote from: MeTekillot on July 07, 2015, 12:18:25 AM
How many PKs a week that don't happen in the 'rinth, though?

The 'rinth sees its share, but so does the wilderness, and apartments, and jail cells, and clan compounds. This past week's PKs took place in a variety of areas.

I can handle the 'rinth or the wilderness. Apartments, jail cells and clan compounds terrify me. Those by far, seem to see a higher rate of PKs vs the first two. (Not counting 3 hour newbs).

good topic and good discussion. good luck coming upwith novel solutions.

personally most antag concepts that are guaranteed to get kills or whatever bore me. once when i tried to roll up pcs with a background of enmity towards a certain group, the staffer reviewing it rejected in on the grounds that I had too recently been involved with said group with prior PCs to make the concept. I accepted this and accepted the possibility that I was partly OOC motivated. Since then, however, I haven't tried to roll up characters with hard enemies. I do roll characters with what I call a soft grudge.. one that need not lead to anything and one my PC wouldn't make sacrifices over. But guess what: that generates absolutely no plots.

i am unsure this one case contributes anything meaningful to the discussion. it is just food for thought, take it with a grain of salt.

Quote from: Talia on July 07, 2015, 12:47:02 AM
I find that the biggest barrier to long-term, interesting conflict that ends in murder is that a lot of PCs just disappear into the desert. It's so sad to make someone your new #1 enemy and then never get to see/kill them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkVjkvaeFnQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkVjkvaeFnQ)

I'm of the opinion that even if you don't want to play a PKing antagonist you can still do your part to make the world harsher. When someone does PK, don't forget to be apathetically cavalier about it! Don't forget, you saw three VNPCs get murdered and robbed just last month. Show some lack of respect.

I personally feel raider PC's are never long-lived, simply due to the fact that the player base lacks anything else to do BUT hunt them. So even if your desperate raider only steals a waterskin, chances are - That PC's going to go back to town and incite a 5,000 'sid bounty on your head, simply because they have copious amounts of indie 'sid lying around and have nothing better to spend it on.

If I were ever to make a raider-type, I'd probably try to have a 100% kill ratio because that's honestly the safest way to raid but I feel it doesn't really get the point across of the grittiness of the game, unless you go around piking up heads - Which your typical raider isn't going to do unless they want to intentionally draw attention to themselves.

Quote from: Gunnerblaster on July 07, 2015, 03:14:53 AM
I personally feel raider PC's are never long-lived, simply due to the fact that the player base lacks anything else to do BUT hunt them. So even if your desperate raider only steals a waterskin, chances are - That PC's going to go back to town and incite a 5,000 'sid bounty on your head, simply because they have copious amounts of indie 'sid lying around and have nothing better to spend it on.

Not always. My last character to get attacked by PCs barely managed to escape alive. He just marched through the city, past a PC templar even, without a word, assuming that no one would give a crap and just taking it as part of the risk of leaving the gates.

You are damned if you do and damned if you don't.  If you kill indiscriminately then people bitch about the lack of roleplay and if you kill only if it makes IC sense then people bitch there's too many long lived characters.

Quote from: Eyeball on July 07, 2015, 03:22:36 AM
Not always. My last character to get attacked by PCs barely managed to escape alive. He just marched through the city, past a PC templar even, without a word, assuming that no one would give a crap and just taking it as part of the risk of leaving the gates.

And I genuinely wish that was the general reaction to such things, but it tends to not be, unfortunately.

It should be bad roleplay for a templar or soldiers, to give a shit about you being raided, unless you are Highborn, or possibly GMH family.

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on July 07, 2015, 03:39:05 AM
It should be bad roleplay for a templar or soldiers, to give a shit about you being raided, unless you are Highborn, or possibly GMH family.

This kind of blanket thinking does no one any good. I've had the sting of other BS like that said about my pcs before too. And why would they not care if you were an important tool to them or if the templar was secretly fucking you? Joe Shitcloak or Amos the Grebber, sure, but that's a pretty exclusionary setup you're aiming for venomz.

Armageddon is a game of have and have-nots. Exclusionary is something we should strive to see a lot more of in-game.

Most players are idiots, too. Little to worry about PKing their characters.

Raider concepts can be made to work. Like a Tuluki patriot that really hates gemmers. No need to worry about leaving survivors then. And anyone with the karma for a gemmer can probably take it in stride.

I SWER UN ME FUKIN' MUM I'LL FUKN REK U M8.
U TINK U HAVIN A LAFF WELL WELL WELL WE'LL SEE H0W FUNNEH U'LL BE WEN I ROUND UP ME M8'S 'N SEE HOW WELL YER HED BOUNCE ON THE CURB, AYE?

Quote from: bardlyone on July 07, 2015, 03:58:49 AM

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on July 07, 2015, 03:39:05 AM
It should be bad roleplay for a templar or soldiers, to give a shit about you being raided, unless you are Highborn, or possibly GMH family.

This kind of blanket thinking does no one any good. I've had the sting of other BS like that said about my pcs before too. And why would they not care if you were an important tool to them or if the templar was secretly fucking you? Joe Shitcloak or Amos the Grebber, sure, but that's a pretty exclusionary setup you're aiming for venomz.

I'm saying it because unless someone important to either the city or that templar is raided, ICly, that templar shouldn't give a shit. If I am out mining sid, and two elves come slap me, and I run in and tell a Templar, do you seriously think he should give a flying shit? Honestly, even if a GMH merchant told me, I'd be sorely tempted to come back with a "Tell you crew" line, but then I'd stop and think about the fact that the GMH merchant could gimmi silks at 1/2 price for five years or something. And obviously, Highborn can fuck your life up if you don't work with them, so baring ill relations, I'll probably care for them too.

But indie hunter #1489? Why would I risk death for that? He should have taken his ass outside with a group. Elves shoot arrows. With poison. I'm Highborn, that's a lowborn piece of shit. Nah, fuck that. And if I'm fucking that piece of low born shit who's so unconnected that nobody butme can back them up, maybe something is wrong with me. Fuck that.

Get raided.

I suppose, though, that some Templars might care. Maybe they have bat-carved battle-masks. By and large, most Templars wouldn't care much, beyond maybe sending out a patrol.

Raiders have gotten harder over time, because as noted, people have for some reason started giving a shit about outside the gates.  City resources get allocated to going after them.  Again, my previous character was a raider that pulled off -one successful raid- before he had a templar ordering mages out after him, and the Byn was riding out in full force for -free- whenever he was sighted, for something to do.

I agree with 7DV.  There is no really no excuse for when policing the wilds becomes a good time investment for the city, aside from rogue mages and sorcererers.  There aren't much in the way of trade routes for them to get in the way of (GMH's deal, they'd have to get involved and pay someone), the grebbers of the city don't contribute to the city's wealth (again, goes to traders, who would have to pay someone to get their interest), and so on.

That said...OP, I think you're good.  Start doin' it baby.  PK's don't end plots, they make 'em, in the grand scheme of things.

EDITED TO ADD:  By the way...I don't think this is a conscious effort, the drift described.  I think people worked harder to make things more newbie friendly, and stopped doing the 'Come hunt with me, so I can take your boots.'  Things became a bit more cooperative...but it left people thirsting for those antagonists to go after, when as I recall it...everyone had a bit of antagonist in them, once upon a time.  Player against player has become some sort of taboo thing where I don't really think it should be.  At the very least...get it back so that Joe Random at the bar asking you to follow him into the hostile wilds for group grebbing is not a 'sweet, protection' deal.  That's just...way too much trust for the zalanthan world to be healthy.

To clarify, I didn't mean to make long liveds a focal point of my argument. I was mostly stating it - like evidence that the world has gone soft. I'm not advocating them merely because they're old, and possibly suffering from dementia.

But I love some of the attitudes that have come out here. It's good to see that there's still a hunger for... the danger. (Cue profile pic change.)

I think part of the phenomenon of more long-lived PCs around can be attributed to an aging player base. I play more cautiously than I used to because I have become better at assessing risk. Or maybe I've just mellowed out, I don't know.

Personally, I get most of my enjoyment out of the game from the relationships my characters form. The longer the relationship lasts, the greater the enjoyment. And I'm not just talking about being buddy-buddy, but long-term, simmering grudges are nice. When I'm getting that kind of enjoyment from the game, PKing my nemesis just isn't worth the risk to my character or the loss of well-developed RP opportunities. And honestly, I don't get much enjoyment from casually killing other characters. If I ever decide to PK someone (and I very rarely do), then you can bet your ass that I will put a lot of planning into to make it a good one. Well, I haven't PK'd anyone in years, so there's that. My last two PKs were somebody trying to kill me, but their cunning plan didn't work out...

So, although I am not personally interested in playing a raider, I think they do occupy an important niche in the game. They make the game-world seem alive and dangerous. I do think that there is a tendency for overreaction against raider characters. Like narf said, be more apathetic! Patrolling the desert should be done with some ICly-compelling self-interest in mind. Examine your motivations - don't go raider hunting just because you (the player) are bored.

Quote from: Talia on July 07, 2015, 12:16:17 AM
I'd say we have anywhere between 5 and 10 PKs per week on a regular basis. Looks like in the 5 to 7 range over the past week, based on runlogs and PK reports. Is that not enough? That's around 2 to 4% of PCs dying to other PCs per week; or around 10% per RL month on the conservative side of the estimate.

It would seem that the problem isn't the volume of PCs killed, it's the lack of sustained conflict between groups of people leading to a boring, stale game where people have no real reason to be at odds. A handful of nobodies getting popped in the 'rinth each week doesn't change that. There's a palpable stagnation in the game and lack of everyday friction between people.

I don't know where this frictionless game that everyone else is playing is at.

Quote from: valeria on July 07, 2015, 12:48:07 PM
I don't know where this frictionless game that everyone else is playing is at.

Yeah, I've been raided once, had my ENTIRE INVENTORY cleaned out by pickpockets twice, and had noobs try to kite aggro mobs to me twice...all in the last month or so.

Quote from: valeria on July 07, 2015, 12:48:07 PM
I don't know where this frictionless game that everyone else is playing is at.

I agree. I see tons of friction in a range from annoyance to actual hatred. With actions to go with it.

Quote from: Fergie on July 07, 2015, 11:19:25 AM
It would seem that the problem isn't the volume of PCs killed, it's the lack of sustained conflict between groups of people leading to a boring, stale game where people have no real reason to be at odds. A handful of nobodies getting popped in the 'rinth each week doesn't change that. There's a palpable stagnation in the game and lack of everyday friction between people.

Maybe you're just in the wrong place to be seeing anything interesting happening.

Most PVP (Whether antagonism is outright conflict) is petty kankshit that's supremely irritating to those of us who aren't trying to play Total Drama Allanak. So I can see both Talia and Fergie being true: there is PVP happening, it's just not very good PVP.

Edit: Unfortunately, the "Good" idea of PVP, of noble houses and city states duking it out, isn't particularly fun to play either (throw poison.dagger amos east). Which is why I prefer PVE.

One could probably make a case that war is just people's petty personal dramas writ large for the international stage.

The corollary, then, would be that no matter how valid, interpersonal strife may always seem petty and dumb, because of the small scope of it.




The final takeaway could be: a war, a feud, a grudge, just start something!

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 01:06:08 PM
Most PVP (Whether antagonism is outright conflict) is petty kankshit that's supremely irritating to those of us who aren't trying to play Total Drama Allanak.

Yeah, I got roped into Total Drama Allanak this year and wasn't exactly enjoying it. Just waiting for it to end, basically, so I could have sane interaction with people again.

Quote from: James de Monet on July 07, 2015, 01:40:47 PM
The final takeaway could be: a war, a feud, a grudge, just start something!

People just "starting" something is precisely why at lot of it seems idiotic, JDM. It's jarring to have fairly minor and personal conflicts reach murderous levels when we're living in a world of scarce resources and giant monsters knocking at the gates.

I think if gith and giant spiders occasionally raided in to the city, you'd see a lot less Total Drama Allanak and more "Holy shit we might actually get killed by this harsh desert world, better band together and then we might STILL die." Would it cut down on PVP? Yeah, probably. Would it achieve a higher character turn-over rate (which was the ORIGINAL gripe of this thread)? Yeah, probably.

PCs don't kill long-lived PCs. NPCs do. Drama develops between players when they aren't suitably threatened by the game world.

True, but I think the other contributing factor in the feeling of (melo)drama is the tendency to overreact instead of escalate.  Like the old adage, 'don't get mad, get even.'

It only seems like bad drama because people have a tendency to go, 'oh, he stole my boots, I'm going to kill him.'  That isn't proportional response.  Instead, laugh it off, then steal his pack, or his apartment, or his friends.  Then he reacts.  The you react, harder.  By the time it gets to anyone being truly angry or murderous, a bunch of people will be involved, and the whole thing will seem a lot less overdramatic, because the justification will be there.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 01:49:41 PMPCs don't kill long-lived PCs. NPCs do. Drama develops between players when they aren't suitably threatened by the game world.

I dunno, Allanak drama can be pretty life threatening.  *shiver*

I could see it being a valid response by the city to send people after raiders, but mostly only if the raiders start stepping on the city's interests. No one is going to miss a salt grebber or two for example, but if things get bad enough that people hesitate before going out salting, House Jal's bottom line starts taking a hit, and then you'd see action. Same thing with obsidian mining. Indie hunting and other sorts of grebbing not so much. Raiders need to strike a balance between finding victims and terrorizing, which is hard to do with a thin PC population.

Quote from: James de Monet on July 07, 2015, 02:03:14 PM
True, but I think the other contributing factor in the feeling of (melo)drama is the tendency to overreact instead of escalate.  Like the old adage, 'don't get mad, get even.'

It only seems like bad drama because people have a tendency to go, 'oh, he stole my boots, I'm going to kill him.'  That isn't proportional response.  Instead, laugh it off, then steal his pack, or his apartment, or his friends.  Then he reacts.  The you react, harder.  By the time it gets to anyone being truly angry or murderous, a bunch of people will be involved, and the whole thing will seem a lot less overdramatic, because the justification will be there.

The problem with your solution is that escalation simply doesn't work, if you assume its goal is to convince the other side to back down and knock off their shit. This playerbase never learns lessons to stop playing with fire. You can punish someone for stealing your Expensive Boots for the umpteenth time, they're still going to try and steal your fucking boots as soon as their HP heals back up. So for purposes of less hassle for your character, it's better to just murder people at the earliest opportunity. They're going to come back on an equally annoying character eventually, may as well buy your PC some time.

I've never liked the back-and-forth gradual escalation that's aimed at inconveniencing PCs. I don't particularly like having to murder PCs just to keep the amount of disruptive kankshit in game to manageable levels, either. To me they're both symptoms of a stagnant gameworld that's no longer threatening or interesting to the playerbase. Maybe I'm just fortunate that I'm still a newb who can still play afraid of the rest of the game world. Going back to the OP's Game of Thrones analogies, JDM, your "Escalation" (melo)drama is King's Landing poli-dicking while I'm up on the wall worried about ice zombies. PVP is small time compared to what we could actually be struggling against.

I recently had a pc who stepped on toes and was hated throughout the known. No one tried to kill her. She tried to arrange murders and couldn't get people to carry them out. One muder got cockblocked right out of the gate.

None of it was sex related BTW.

Conflict that is meaningful and interesting to humans and demi-humans in this game originates from the power structures of the game, and trickles downhill.  A lot of OOC frustration seems to bear from dealing with the melodrama of the peons, which frankly, is a tangential arc, at best.  If you're dying for conflict, look for it.  Make a rich enemy.  Blunder a noble's pet project.  Do something imperfect or horrible, and sweat bullets because someone powerful wants to kill you, and it's a tok eat tok world, so naturally, you have to do something.  BE THE CHANGE DUDE

I dunno, really, I'm just spitballing.   Maybe take lessons from Is Friday, the guy is a vending machine for powerless internet rage.

I think what people are really reacting to, is not so much the lack of raiding (which has been bullshit since Plainsman, pretty much), so much as the lack of any credible, antagonistic clans or tribes.

Armageddon used to have a lot of conflict-driven clan vs clan, or tribe vs drive competition. The most obvious example was Allanak vs Tuluk. But there were the Red Fangs, and others. Armageddon doesn't have that anymore. Clans/tribes also provide an infrastructure for potential antagonists. It's not like, invest 10 days in a loner ranger, raid one person, then get fucked. You got a support network.

I think they need to bring it back. Vote Gith in 2016.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 02:39:44 PM

Quote from: James de Monet on July 07, 2015, 02:03:14 PM
True, but I think the other contributing factor in the feeling of (melo)drama is the tendency to overreact instead of escalate.  Like the old adage, 'don't get mad, get even.'

It only seems like bad drama because people have a tendency to go, 'oh, he stole my boots, I'm going to kill him.'  That isn't proportional response.  Instead, laugh it off, then steal his pack, or his apartment, or his friends.  Then he reacts.  The you react, harder.  By the time it gets to anyone being truly angry or murderous, a bunch of people will be involved, and the whole thing will seem a lot less overdramatic, because the justification will be there.

Going back to the OP's Game of Thrones analogies, JDM, your "Escalation" (melo)drama is King's Landing poli-dicking while I'm up on the wall worried about ice zombies. PVP is small time compared to what we could actually be struggling against.

As much as it's not my personal favorite sort of thing, it's hard to deny the sudden surge of player numbers during the riots a while back. I think it's pretty clear from that that a large portion of the playerbase likes interesting and dynamic PVE situations.

Last I checked, pretty much none of the noble houses like each other, despite whatever surface alliance they're flying for the month.  Merchant houses are in cutthroat competition over fringe markets.  Everyone hates the indies, and the AoD has to wipe all your asses.  Maybe the game would be enriched by having a blunt instrument like raiding gith or delf clans brought in, but saying there's a complete dearth of potential is lazy and a copout.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 07, 2015, 02:54:59 PM
I think what people are really reacting to, is not so much the lack of raiding (which has been bullshit since Plainsman, pretty much), so much as the lack of any credible, antagonistic clans or tribes.

Armageddon used to have a lot of conflict-driven clan vs clan, or tribe vs drive competition. The most obvious example was Allanak vs Tuluk. But there were the Red Fangs, and others. Armageddon doesn't have that anymore.

I think they need to bring it back. Vote Gith in 2016.

The funny thing is that players were mostly responsible for destroying those clans. They want antagonism until it happens to them.

Then they bitch and moan and cry and swear unholy revenge.

I loved the Red Fangs, I loved being raided by and cutting dirty deals with them. Granted, they overstepped their reach, but they added a much-needed flavor of danger to the wilderness. I would have preferred to see the Red Fangs curtailed to certain areas (Red Desert, Salt Flats, Scrub) rather than destroyed entirely. That danger has returned somewhat due to the increased NPC threats and poisons, but it's still nowhere near as interesting as having to deal with the cunning of a player-controlled antagonist.

The problem is twofold:

1) Reaching the point where you have enough power to be an effective protagonist is hard, and staying alive is even harder when the whole Known bands against you because you hurt, stole from, or insulted one of their precious PCs. Meanwhile, staff can just load up an NPC with the appropriate skills. So staff-generated conflict is much easier.

2) There are no player-created clans outside of cities any more, which means that these player antagonists lack a base of operations. Contrast against the Black Moon or the Rebellion, where you had sweet defensible camps that could be ridden out of and retreated to.  Without a place to congregate and store stuff, it's impossible to keep a clan together.

Quote from: Kismetic on July 07, 2015, 02:58:52 PM
Maybe the game would be enriched by having a blunt instrument like raiding gith or delf clans brought in, but saying there's a complete dearth of potential is lazy and a copout.

It's a good thing no one said that!

Quote from: Kismetic on July 07, 2015, 02:58:52 PM
Merchant houses are in cutthroat competition over fringe markets.

Since when?

GMHs are so specialized, that they're really more co-dependent than competitive. Their rich indie hunters typically want to make purchases from all three Houses, so they stay on good terms.

I'm not saying there's a complete lack of disagreement. Great Britain and Spain still bicker about the status of Gibraltar and tweak each other about it, but they both belong to the EU, and no actual 'shooting war' is conceivable between them. That's pretty much how it is between Salarr, Kurac and Kadius. There's not enough overlap for them to meaningfully have it out, or incentive, to risk losing access to the other House's orders.

Things are not so dire as people are making it out, but unrealistically idealistic assertions are not helpful either.

Quote from: Delirium on July 07, 2015, 03:03:02 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 07, 2015, 02:54:59 PM
I think what people are really reacting to, is not so much the lack of raiding (which has been bullshit since Plainsman, pretty much), so much as the lack of any credible, antagonistic clans or tribes.

Armageddon used to have a lot of conflict-driven clan vs clan, or tribe vs drive competition. The most obvious example was Allanak vs Tuluk. But there were the Red Fangs, and others. Armageddon doesn't have that anymore.

I think they need to bring it back. Vote Gith in 2016.

I loved the Red Fangs, I loved being raided by and cutting dirty deals with them. Granted, they overstepped their reach, but they added a much-needed flavor of danger to the wilderness. I would have preferred to see the Red Fangs curtailed to certain areas (Red Desert, Salt Flats, Scrub) rather than destroyed entirely. That danger has returned somewhat due to the increased NPC threats and poisons, but it's still nowhere near as interesting as having to deal with the cunning of a player-controlled antagonist.

I loved the Red Fangs as well, and I had several of them. It was okay to take risks, and die, because you had a clan infrastructure to grow back up in. And also, people to RP with and form relationships with. It wasn't so dire as a loner raider.

I also agree with both of your points, as to what the primary challenges are.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 07, 2015, 03:08:02 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on July 07, 2015, 02:58:52 PM
Maybe the game would be enriched by having a blunt instrument like raiding gith or delf clans brought in, but saying there's a complete dearth of potential is lazy and a copout.

It's a good thing no one said that!

My bad if it seems like I'm targeting you there, but this is a common saber to rattle.  "There is no source of conflict, therefore, mantis/gith/halflings."

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 07, 2015, 03:08:02 PM
There's not enough overlap for them to meaningfully have it out, or incentive, to risk losing access to the other House's orders.

There are things for GMHs to compete over in the game, and while there is likely not room for a 'shooting war' (like back in the day when a Kuraci got assassinated in parley), there is a source of conflict and ways for PCs to deal with it.

I like the idea of crushing the losers of conflict into dust, but new enemies should take their place.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 07, 2015, 02:54:59 PM
I think what people are really reacting to, is not so much the lack of raiding (which has been bullshit since Plainsman, pretty much), so much as the lack of any credible, antagonistic clans or tribes.

Armageddon used to have a lot of conflict-driven clan vs clan, or tribe vs drive competition. The most obvious example was Allanak vs Tuluk. But there were the Red Fangs, and others. Armageddon doesn't have that anymore. Clans/tribes also provide an infrastructure for potential antagonists. It's not like, invest 10 days in a loner ranger, raid one person, then get fucked. You got a support network.

I think they need to bring it back. Vote Gith in 2016.

I'm curious which time you're talking about with major clan vs clan.  Aside from north vs south, which was mostly played out through RPT's and very minor raids that were incredibly infrequent...gith have been gone for a looooong time, and were not wildly successful prior.  Mantis were so isolated you had to go and find them to see a PC.  Halflings were around, but from what I saw, they tried just as much to make friends with chosen people rather than be a pure antagonist (exposure small on that one).

Are you talking blackmoon?  They were an antagonist clan, yes, but far from majorly responsible.  As I've said many times, in the 1999-2003 era, when I probably saw the most player on player conflict...it was almost solely on an individual level.  Everyone was a raider.  Everyone was getting raided.  Kadian/Salarr hunters banded together so they didn't get raided (why people joined them in droves), which is where blackmoon came in.  They were the only ones capable of raiding large groups.

I'm not in disagreement with you, but I -am- reiterating the point that people seem to want this, but are essentially demanding clan and staff support for doing it, which is just not necessary.  Make a raiding group.  Openly.  Train each other in guard, trap people in, do your raids, force independents into you group...see how far you get.  Raider lives are not typically long lived ones, but damn are they fun.  That's with or without clan support.

The problem Jack, isn't that you want to kill me. The problem is you haven't even tried.

Quote from: Barzalene on July 07, 2015, 03:27:00 PM
The problem Jack, isn't that you want to kill me. The problem is you haven't even tried.

Blam.  Classy and absolutely right. :D

I've played some seriously rotten individuals. The horrible rapist murderer sick and twisted mentality fuckers.

I don't know, I generally don't get "hunted" by the whole world. I usually end up getting hunted by a single group...while having other groups on my side, be that out of fear, or just because they like the dastardly roguish charm of my villain, which I usually try to shoot for since that is fun for me.

I've never played an all out psychopath though. The kind who have no code and no morals. Those are the kinds that tend to get hunted by "everyone", because nobody can relate to them....even the other villains.

If you want to play a antagonist, don't play one that is intentionally going to make you an enemy of every single person you meet, or yes, it will feel like you are being hunted by everyone, and you will die quickly.

Most of my villains have some sort of code, or personal law, even if it is twisted, that people can catch onto and either relate with or adapt to so they don't feel like my character is a direct threat to them.

I recommend that. Not only is more realistic in my opinion, but it is more interesting, and the villain tends to last longer, but without a doubt almost always has a shorter lifespan than your typical good guy.

I have always considered the "good guy" the standard. Why? Because most of us come from playing tabletop games and RPG's where you are always the good guy. We want to be heroes. What fun is playing a villain in a world of villains where your evil is just the "norm"? No, you need a world of heroes and a few villains for villains to be truly special...I like it that way.

If you feel like the current world is full of a lot of long-lived "good guys" right now....it's probably because it is. Good guys tend to live longer than bad guys, because bad guys make a lot more enemies.

Seems like a basic math that is always going to hold true, barring some minor fluctuations now and again due to events or particularly inspiring villains coming onto the scene.

My advice? Play an inspiring villain. Don't play a fucking nutjob, you will die quickly because you will have zero allies, even among the villains. Play a smart villain.

There's actually been a surge of raider activity in my area recently, but I guess it is still quiet elsewhere?

Quote from: Armaddict on July 07, 2015, 03:19:24 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 07, 2015, 02:54:59 PM
I think what people are really reacting to, is not so much the lack of raiding (which has been bullshit since Plainsman, pretty much), so much as the lack of any credible, antagonistic clans or tribes.

Armageddon used to have a lot of conflict-driven clan vs clan, or tribe vs drive competition. The most obvious example was Allanak vs Tuluk. But there were the Red Fangs, and others. Armageddon doesn't have that anymore. Clans/tribes also provide an infrastructure for potential antagonists. It's not like, invest 10 days in a loner ranger, raid one person, then get fucked. You got a support network.

I think they need to bring it back. Vote Gith in 2016.

I'm curious which time you're talking about with major clan vs clan.  Aside from north vs south, which was mostly played out through RPT's and very minor raids that were incredibly infrequent...gith have been gone for a looooong time, and were not wildly successful prior.  Mantis were so isolated you had to go and find them to see a PC.  Halflings were around, but from what I saw, they tried just as much to make friends with chosen people rather than be a pure antagonist (exposure small on that one).

Are you talking blackmoon?  They were an antagonist clan, yes, but far from majorly responsible.  As I've said many times, in the 1999-2003 era, when I probably saw the most player on player conflict...it was almost solely on an individual level.  Everyone was a raider.  Everyone was getting raided.  Kadian/Salarr hunters banded together so they didn't get raided (why people joined them in droves), which is where blackmoon came in.  They were the only ones capable of raiding large groups.

I'm not in disagreement with you, but I -am- reiterating the point that people seem to want this, but are essentially demanding clan and staff support for doing it, which is just not necessary.  Make a raiding group.  Openly.  Train each other in guard, trap people in, do your raids, force independents into you group...see how far you get.  Raider lives are not typically long lived ones, but damn are they fun.  That's with or without clan support.

The gith was mostly a joke. I'd love them, but I highly doubt staff will bring them back. Not because staff isn't hardcore enough for my tastes, but because I think if they were going to move in that direction, they'd do it with a different clan first.

As for antagonistic clans in the past that are no longer around...There's a lot of them. Red Fangs, Blackmoon, The Rebellion, Dune Stalkers, Benjari. Again, the whole Allanak vs Tuluk dynamic. That's without touching on Mantis/Gith/Halflings which are no longer around. Personally, I'm fine with the Mantis and Halflings being gone. They were worthless ISO clans. What I like about the Gith, is that they're not ISO. But it's hard for Gith to have a meaningful place in Pah politics, without the Red Fangs. Since the Red Fangs were known to secretly trade and cooperate with the Gith, against the other tribes.

Anyways. I don't know how much staff support it requires. All it basically needs is a camp and a minimum of documentation. The reason why the Red Fangs were able to work is that you didn't need to get recruited by them ICly. You didn't need to be friends with someone OOCly. You could simply note their existence as a clan and app into them like you would Sun Runners, Soh or ATV.

Do I think the game would benefit from having a Red Fang/Blackmoon/Rebellion type clan again? Yes. Do I understand why they're not around, even if I disagree with the why? Yes. Am I going to 'be the change' with my next PC, for whom I already have some pretty great ideas to try stuff along the lines of what you're suggesting? Absolutely.

But so long as we're talking about 'opinions' and 'desires', then yes, I'd desire another Red Fang type clan. I hope that staff might get around to introducing one, since the South vs North dynamic is more in abeyance.

Quote from: Armaddict on July 07, 2015, 03:28:20 PM

Quote from: Barzalene on July 07, 2015, 03:27:00 PM
The problem Jack, isn't that you want to kill me. The problem is you haven't even tried.

Blam.  Classy and absolutely right. :D

Haha. Truthful. This is just the GDB incarnation of a discussion I was having with a friend last night, and have had several times over the past 6 months or so.

And I'm not whining about wanting change. I've been doing my part, as much as I could with the characters I've had lately. This topic was more of meter for if others were feeling the way I feel about this situation. And in that capacity it's been very encouraging.

Delirium's "Twofold problems" did smack it on the head. And I'm sorry to say, I think what was hard before will become a lot harder with Tuluk closed.

This is why every NPC I play is an utter asshole. I'm just trying to make the hatred flow for you guys!

I deeply regret not trying to fite your NPC Talia :(

edit: tho as I recall I did ask you to fite me m8 and NPC backed down  ;)

I'm not done trying!

Like all plots, assassination plots of powerful PCs (and most long-lived PCs are powerful) take time, attention, and usually several try-fail cycles to pull off.  And then you don't broadcast when you do succeed, because most long-lived PCs have friends, and most people just assume that X or Y stored.*

_{*This is my experience, experiences may vary.}

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 01:49:41 PMPCs don't kill long-lived PCs. NPCs do.

This has not been my experience circa 2002-2006.

I don't really get the animosity towards player driven conflict. Murder. Betrayal.  Corruption. IMO 90% of the populace should be striving to include this as part of their characters' lives every single day. If I'm understanding people correctly dismissing that as Total Allanak Drama seems antithetical to the game. I don't know if this resistance is an artifact of Tuluk being closed, but I was always under the impression that Tuluk had these things as well.

Banding together to face a common threat shouldn't be SOP. If you hear about someone being threatened by danger X your first thought should be "how can I take advantage of this situation" not "Let us form the Light Brigade for the greater good and defeat this threat so that we may all live in harmony."

Apologies if I've misunderstood people's points.

I don't play characters that are driven by conflict, I find it difficult to play conflict-driven characters.

I do however like to play characters that don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves. I see too many characters in-game who care about everyone, or at least care about most or a lot of people around them. If more characters were willing to stay out of other people's conflict, there'd be less white-knighting and all that.

Treat it as entertainment, treat it as a threat to you and play it that way. Whatever.

I don't have much more to add on the in-depth issue of Y U NOT MORE CONFLICT because it's not my niche. But I do think there's a whole lot of caring going on. Some of it could stop.

Quote from: John on July 07, 2015, 07:35:34 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 01:49:41 PMPCs don't kill long-lived PCs. NPCs do.

This has not been my experience circa 2002-2006.

Are you serious? That was ten years ago. Back then people would get banned for mucking up Staff plots (after their characters were just vindictively exploded). I don't even know if Karma was a thing then. By all reports it was a different game.

Quote
I don't really get the animosity towards player driven conflict. Murder. Betrayal.  Corruption. IMO 90% of the populace should be striving to include this as part of their characters' lives every single day.

Why? Murder and Betrayal are both insanely risky things that can easily get your character killed. Your PC should have good reason for embarking on them - like having no recourse to survive BUT by engaging in murder and betrayal - not because you have some sort of OOC dwarf focus to act out the tag line. If you want to play all your characters as the Scorpion in the Scorpion and the Frog fable, okay... but that's kind of an insane standpoint. Unless you're playing a serial killer, your PC probably has reasons for wanting to expend extra time and effort on killing people.

At least, that's how I play. Corruption's a lot more interesting to see play out since it typically doesn't devolve into a murderfest... unless someone gets all self-righteous up in the mix.

Quote
If I'm understanding people correctly dismissing that as Total Allanak Drama seems antithetical to the game. I don't know if this resistance is an artifact of Tuluk being closed, but I was always under the impression that Tuluk had these things as well.

It existed well before Tuluk's closure in Allanak. I wouldn't even say its antithetical to the game: most PCs are young and kind of stupid so it's not wholly out of character for them. It's just annoying to run into constantly, like sinkholes.

Quote
Banding together to face a common threat shouldn't be SOP. If you hear about someone being threatened by danger X your first thought should be "how can I take advantage of this situation" not "Let us form the Light Brigade for the greater good and defeat this threat so that we may all live in harmony."

Apologies if I've misunderstood people's points.

A raider on the flat's isn't a threat if you're not going out to the flats. So I agree: a Templar or militia leader or captain of a swarthy crew of swarthy mage-killing badasses doesn't need to rush out to investigate a raider. When I'm talking about threats, I'm talking about things that will come into your PC's life and Ruin It, whether you want them to or not. The Spider Infestation plotline from a couple years back was one example - normally antagonistic organizations in Allanak (nobles and Gemmed, militia and criminals) had to work together to try and pin down that threat and eliminate it cause it was killing indiscriminately. Was it all hugs and kisses? Hell no. There was a lot of distrust between these temporary partners and the alliances dissolved pretty quickly once the threat was passed. But no one tried to backstab each other in the middle of a fight because of some slight from months back.

Total Drama Allanak is conflict and drama for its own sake. The deepest meaning you'll find behind it is "my character was insulted!" which I personally don't think is a good enough reason. Your character probably cares more about keeping itself fed than keeping its dignity intact. That's my take on it.

In the vast history of Armageddon threads, I don't think a single one has ever legitimately qualified more for this response:

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 08:00:08 PMAre you serious? That was ten years ago.

I qualified my statement because I can't speak with 100% authority that it is still true.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 08:00:08 PMBy all reports it was a different game.

It wasn't anywhere near as awful as you seem to think it was.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 08:00:08 PMWhy?

Because those are the themes of the games. Post apocalyptic is the genre. Murder, betrayal and corruption are the themes.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 08:00:08 PMMurder and Betrayal are both insanely risky things that can easily get your character killed. Your PC should have good reason for embarking on them - like having no recourse to survive BUT by engaging in murder and betrayal

Every raider presents an opportunity for those not being raided. GMH can benefit greatly by raiders. Betraying your bosses should come with great profits for you personally when your bosses' enemies seek to harm them.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 08:00:08 PMIt existed well before Tuluk's closure in Allanak. I wouldn't even say its antithetical to the game: most PCs are young and kind of stupid so it's not wholly out of character for them

Young people are the most ambitious. In Zalanthas people get powerful on the backs of those who were too weak to stop them. They didn't get ahead by preaching tolerance and cooperation

[quote author=BadSkeelz link=topic=49671.msg895686#msg895686 date=1436313608I'm talking about things that will come into your PC's life and Ruin It, whether you want them to or not. The Spider Infestation plotline from a couple years back was one example - normally antagonistic organizations in Allanak (nobles and Gemmed, militia and criminals) had to work together to try and pin down that threat and eliminate it cause it was killing indiscriminately. Was it all hugs and kisses? Hell no. There was a lot of distrust between these temporary partners and the alliances dissolved pretty quickly once the threat was passed. But no one tried to backstab each other in the middle of a fight because of some slight from months back.[/quote]Some of the greatest plots were only achieved because some players were willing to work with the antagonists.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 08:00:08 PMTotal Drama Allanak is conflict and drama for its own sake.

There should be drama because people should be playing their character in such a way that makes survival difficult. When your struggling you'll get a lot more murder, betrayal and corruption.

To expand on my earlier point: This thread exists because some miss the days where PvP was more prevalent. I'm not saying that PvE shouldn't exist. But it shouldn't be the main driver of conflict. Here are the problems with PvE in my view:

Player vs Weather: Weather sucks. It can be dangerous. And if you aren't careful it can strand you. But so long as you were properly prepared it isn't going to kill you. You can stick it out with the sufficient food and water and know you're going to be okay. If you need to log out you can ranger quit or quit OOC.

Weather is an important part of the game, but for the properly prepared player it will offer inconvenience and not true danger. The weather can enhance other dangers though.

Player vs Static Beasts and NPCs: Unless you have "gotcha" mobs where they look indistinguishable from harmless ones but are secretly murdering machines, there are no threat to anyone except the newbie traveller. Players will simply grind on the safe animals and once they see their skills reach point X they'll go face the slightly more dangerous ones. There should be less dangerous beasts close to the city for people to hunt and I applaud the inclusion of them. I feel that the balance is really good at the moment in terms of danger/safety in the immediate environs of Allanak. But it inevitably leads to people being able to tailor their own experience in terms of what threats they face. The biggest killer here (as it has always been) is player boredom/impatience.

Player vs Staff Plots: Staff are only logged in X amount of the time. Although there seems to be a lot more staff for off-peak players these days, they still only have so much time and energy to put into entertaining players rather than facilitating player-initiated activities. So if we rely solely on staff run plots for conflict and excitement then we will be limited in how much of this we actually get to enjoy. Imagine what turns and twists the Great Spider plot you cited would have been taken if some players had banded with the spiders rather than uniting against them (I was around for this plot and I personally suspect there were PCs who did exactly this).

Given these factors, PvP will always be where the greatest amount of player experienced conflict will come from. If people are bored, then it's likely they aren't getting enough murder, corruption and betrayal in their diet. Staff also had (have?) rules against creating plots with the sole purpose of killing specific PCs. Was this rule broken? Sure. But it was broken a lot less than you would think.

I understand the complaint against "conflict for conflicts' sake" and the dislike for creating characters whose sole purpose is conflict. And I agree. Down this road leads moustache twirling villains who don't add very much to the game. But I disagree that personal conflict inevitably devolves to "Total Allanak Drama" unless you're deconstructing it significantly. But if so, then you can argue that that Tuluk vs Allanak was always "Total Zalanthas Drama" where Muk Utep and Tektolnes were simply trying to prove who had the greatest penis.

Intra-Clan Conflict: Clans are great. Everyone's meant to get along, right? Wrong. This is Zalanthas. There is only so much resources to go around. There are only so many promotions that people can attain. Promotions that come with security, perks and benefits. Minions should be jockeying against each other to attain that limited promotion spot. THose who are at the top of the player ladder should be paranoid against their minions trying to take their spot (or their fellow House members from taking their spot for nobles and GMH merchants).

This doesn't have to always take the form of murder though. Setting someone up to succeed at something only to betray them (best done without it being revealed to the party) so you can then swoop in and pick up the pieces is one great way of having conflict without murder. Do this enough times and you can have them demoted or "failed upwards" where any real power is taken away from them so your character can gain it for themselves.

Why would you do that? Why not be content with what you've got and what you can get in riding their coat-tails? Playing a lazy character is perfectly fine. But you can still betray people. Hire people who do a lot of work and then steal all the credit. Give them just enough rewards to keep them happy and constantly hold a carrot out for them just outside of their reach. They might plot your death, but if you're stealing the credit you should be getting a fair amount of rewards. Those rewards can be used to get others to warn you should your minnion prove to actually act out their plans of revenge. If you're lazy, you can also be open to corruption. Betray people in return for more goodies. There'll always be new bosses. Strive to reach that optimal point where you're competent enough to not get rid of you while still being lazy enough that you're doing the bare minimum work required. If you can also be fun on an OOC level and entertain those you're screwing over outside of your clan-work related activities then you'll probably live a lot longer than you have any right to.

Inter-Clan Conflict: Unfortunately the established clans are pigeonholed enough that there is very little overlap between them. The nobles should be scheming against each other though which can allow you to try to play them off each other and be everyone's best friend while secretly betraying every single one. Or you can throw in your own with one clan and plot with them against another.

The Race to Minor Merchant Housedom: IMO this falls under the heading of Inter-Clan conflict, but I thought it warranted separating it. We now have the addition of the MMH process which can allow players to create clans that last beyond their character. This is a great addition to the game IMO and they should be a great source of conflict.

Minor Merchant Houses introduce more influence and players into the economy. No longer will nobles need to gain the support of Kadius, Salarr or Kurac. They can instead gain the support of MMH Malek, MMH Amos and MMH Talia. The more power players there are, the less influence the established players have. Coin is meaningless outside of the peons (and thanks to various money generating methods money isn't that impressive there either). Political influence is the true currency of the game and each MMH dilutes how much influence everyone else has.

Why We Shouldn't Get Along: Having a long lived character once made you a force to be reckoned with. People murdered you because you got in their way. You got in their way because doing so denied them power which increased your own power. I'm not talking coded power here. Some of the most fearsome and controversial characters were merchants.

Where's the achievement in having a long lived character, if they faced no true danger? Where's the sense of achievment in creating a MMH, if everyone helped you and no-one stopped you? If we want a chatroom where no-one ever faces true danger (remember, only inexperienced and impatient players are threatened by P v Weather and P v Mobs) there's no need for all of the coded features we have in the game.

So no. Characters shouldn't be engaging in conflict for the sake of conflict. They should be engaging in conflict because they're either greedy (they want more than they have), lazy (they don't want to work hard to keep what they have) or paranoid (someone else is plotting to harm me and I have to make prepare for when they do and/or pre-emptively strike). Characters should either want what other people have or want to protect what they have from those who wish to take it away or lessen it. If everyone is sitting in drum circles smoking spice and preaching peace, then no. You won't get much PvP conflict. But when did that become the Armageddon experience? I'd certainly like to think it hasn't.

Creating long lasting change should be challenging, not because you jumped through arbitrary hoops set up by staff, but because you faced true adversity and great challenges that were only overcome by great effort and a healthy dose of murder, corruption and betrayal. Relying on staff to the be the sole font of such adversity isn't very enjoyable for staff (we've already seen that sentiment expressed here by one staff member) and will ultimately not be very satisfying (either staff presented too much of a challenge in which case everyone complains that staff don't let anyone do anything. Or they only presented a token challenge which means no true adversity was faced).

Of course, the enjoyment of the game doesn't (typically) come from typing "backstab Amos." There might be a minor thrill in that but it is quickly forgotten. The greatest amount of fun comes in the planning of the murder of Amos and the involvement of a wide number of characters in Amos's death. Murdering someone can happen in any number of ways and that variety is what makes it enjoyable. It's great to see we get 5-10 PKs a week, but if those PKs are meaningless then how much fun and enjoyment is added to the game?

As for be the change: I am :) I might not be plotting someone's murder. I might not be plotting to betray someone. Heck I might not even be trying to corrupt people (alright. I probably am trying to corrupt someone). But if I'm not doing any of these things. Then I'm probably trying to protect myself from those who are plotting them against me. Even if that threat is only in my head. And if I'm doing it right, I'll hopefully inspire someone to plot against me.

Just to beat this dead horse some more into the ground, here is: John's Guide to Creating Sustainable Meaningful Conflict

I'm thinking people might be misunderstanding me when I say 90% of the playerbase should be striving towards murder, corruption and betrayal and the conflict that surrounds these themes. So here's my thoughts laid out on how achieving these conflict makes for a more enjoyable game. Borrowed shamelessly from Vanth's Guide to Noble PCs.

Step 1: Make friends

When you start out whatever you do, don't make waves. You have no clout, you don't (necessarily) know the lay of the land and you need to prove yourself. Murder, Corruption and Betrayal can come later. To start with you need to become useful to the powers that be.

If you don't wait and do murder and betray everybody you meet, you'll likely be doing it solo and it will become an isolating and boring role. You'll also inevitably be killed. While the only rule in Armageddon is that everyone dies, you want yours to be an achievement, not a minor footnote that goes unremarked.

So making friends, as counterproductive as it might sound, is the key to creating sustainable meaningful conflict. Don't listen to those who tell you that you need to hide and grind your skills up and then be a badass. Impatience will set in and you'll almost always do somethig stupid. Make friends who will be able to back you up in the event that someone wants revenge.

Don't make too many friends though. Who your friendly with will (ideally) shut out who you can be friends with and will (hopefully) cause you to inherit your friends' enemies.

Step 2: Get powerful allies

Everybody wants something. It might not be coin, in fact with how easy coin is to earn it will often not be coin. But they will want something. Whether it's information, items, someone dead, someone blocked from performing a task, a f-buddy, etc. Find out what that something is that a powerful person wants. And then give it to them.

The more powerful the person, the more difficult it might be to get them what they want. Even learning what it is they want can be difficult. But that's where your friends come into the picture. They can help you learn what it is the person wants. It might be through betrayal, it could be through corruption. It could (rarely) be through murder. Or it could simply be given to you. Whatever that thing is though, your friends will hopefully help you learn it. If you can't, then choose someone less powerful and learn what they want. Make them a friend or an ally and then use them to gain a more powerful ally.

Your friends can also help you get whatever it is that the powerful person wants. If you don't have the resources or skill to get it yourself, enlist the aid of others. This will possibly require you to do things for them in return, etc, etc until eventually you have that thing you wanted. You can then present that thing to the powerful figure. This will establish you as someone that is useful and worth having around. The more you do for this powerful figure, the more they will assist you when someone comes after you.

Step 3: Set Goals and Desires

By this stage your character will be an established figure in the game. They're known as someone who gets shit done. On an OOC level players will want to play with you because they know you'll find interesting things for them to do and that you'll make the game more enjoyable. On an IC level working with you comes with benefits (either tangible or intangible rewards). It is now time for you to decide what you want in life.

You might have had an initial idea when you wrote your character's background. Through play you might have seen things that you decided you want. Now is the time to definitively set those goals and desires of what you want. A good desire or goal will be one that helps put you at odds with other players.

Some examples include:
* Create a clan that lasts longer than your character.
* Gain a powerful position in an established clan.
* Have nice things.
* Gain the ability to slack off and not have to work very hard.

Step 4: Identify Potential Obstacles

These aren't people who WILL stop you, these are people who COULD try to to stop you. Let's face it, you can't always trust other players to live up to the themes of the game. Some players are new, others just have no interest in that aspect of the game. Others are simply so exhausted from their recent efforts that they don't have the energy to engage in a heavy amount of MCB. So you may need to initiate it or inspire them yourself. That's okay. Creating your own enemies will make it easier for you sustainable and meaningful conflict to be created in the future. Other players will also see how much fun there is in doing it and become inspired themselves.

There'll also be non-PC obstacles as well. Make sure you identify those as they'll be important to give your character something to do other than "GWRAR! More PKz!!!!!1111"

Step 5: Deal with the potential obstacles

It doesn't matter if they're true obstacles or not. If they aren't an obstacle, they could one day gain enough care-factor to become one. They could also be incentivised by your true enemies to become a problem. So be proactive and deal with them.

However you can't just murder them all at once. You'll quickly become too great of a cost to your allies to keep you around. They'll betray you and abandon you to distance simply because the cost/benefit analysis comes up short in your favour. So you need to be subtle and you need to be patient. This is where non-PC obstacles are important because you can attack at 3 or 4 obstacles and only have 1 or 2 of them be actual PCs.

How do you deal with PC obstacles? Here is where variety is truly the spice of life. Using a one-size fits all approach will get monotonous and boring for all involved. So while there's definitely murder, if they're in an established clan they'll simply be replaced by someone else. If the clan learns that you were responsible for the original murder you may become a target for the replacement clannie.

Instead you can:
* Make them a friend or an ally: Find out how to make yourself useful to them so they stop being an obstacle and instead become an ally. If they're powerful, this can be of great benefit to you. You can also always betray them later once they stop being useful.
* Discredit them: Plant false rumours about what they're doing. Assassinate people and make it look like the obstacle was the responsible party. Get them thrown out of their clan or make their allies turn on them.
* Distract them: Get them chasing off something else you don't care about while you enact your plans. By the time they finish chasing the distraction you should have maneuvered yourself into a position where they can no longer stop you. If not, plan successive distractions or use a different method.
* Blackmail them: Find out a dirty little secret they have and blackmail them. So long as you don't make your demands disproportionate to the blackmail you have they might not even plot to kill you.

Step 6: Achieve your goals

This is where you've successfully dealt with all potential obstacles and have now gained what you set out to achieve.

Step 7: Set new goals

Go back to Step 3 and set new goals. You can continue to cycle through Steps 3-6 indefinitely, creating plenty of conflict and enjoyment along the way. Regardless of what staff are doing, you'll be able to make things exciting and fun for the playerbase at large. Even if your only goal is "Hold on to what I have" that is still a goal that can create plenty of conflict. Because eventually someone will want what you have and start plotting against you.

----
This is what I mean by player conflict should be the main driver of the game and that everyone should strive for murder, betrayal and corruption every day. It doesn't need to be achieved every day, but your activities should have that end goal in mind.

Player conflict doesn't have to be "Total Allanak Drama" all the time. Nor do you need to create a character with the IC goal of "murderize, betray and corrupt all the poeplezzzz!" Creating three dimensional characters while keeping in mind the virtual world and the themes of the game should be all that's needed to create plenty of PvP.

You'll also notice that PK is not the main driver of this, which I realise is at odds with the initial post in this thread. Murder is definitely an important tool in the "Let's enjoy the game" toolbox. But it's only one of many and should be used as appropriate.

Of course, following this model you'll get plenty of co-operation. Co-operation is good and needed. But just as Vanth's Guide to Nobles mentions, thinking of someone as "always 100% an ally" reduces your power and makes you subserviant to them. There might be the rare individual with whom you think of in this manner. But they should be few and far between. Allies should always be on a "for now" basis.

So what's different between what we have now and using the above method? Not very much. I always assume that people who are being friendly are either in Step 1-2. New characters will definitely be in the Step 1-2 phase and so it will look exactly like what we currently have. But the longer lived characters should definitely be in the Step 3-6 phase. You might be all smiles and giggles in public and totally plotting against people in private. And that's great. But there comes a time when thought needs to turn into action.

To enable more conflict, as a playerbase when we find out "So-and-So just murdered Such and Such" we shouldn't automatically go "Lets team up against Such-and-Such." There should definitely be room for "Such-and-Such is someone who can get shit done. Could I use that to achieve my goals?"

Alright. I'd better do some actual work now.

Tetra's solution:

Take a breather from the game and hope the assholes around have killed each other by the time you come back.

Quote from: Desertman on July 07, 2015, 08:26:36 PM
In the vast history of Armageddon threads, I don't think a single one has ever legitimately qualified more for this response:

BE THE CHANGE!!!

I hate conflict that's made to be conflicting and that's it, because boring. PK at random is the worst example of that I can think of. PK is one of those things where if it's not judicious then it's damaging both RP and future conflict and likely to get everybody to turn on you. I love great conflict and it's fun, and great conflict will buy you enough respect in a lot of cases, enough to avoid certain death no matter who you kill.

The first log I posted up is because my PC got stabbed in silks by a fellow Templar because she had mocked his attempt to get power over her, that upon finding out she already had said power and hid it, flipped his shit and stabbed her out onto the street before realising the PR problem he'd make if he continued to do so publicly.

My PC's response was to go home, brood, change from silks to armour, grab her weapon, walk back into the room and kill him. Then we got that lovely log! That was the culmination of all sorts of parallel plots involving numerous PCs, some acting two sided or looking to capitalise over the feud. I had fun at least!

If however, the pbase basically equates 'raiding' or PK with MCB, holy crap are players unimaginative and lazy. Raiding is not the pinnacle of conflict achievement. Victory and domination are. Take shit over, tear shit down and build new things, whether organisational, familial or architectural. Win so hard that you're left standing because it's not worth it to topple you or it'd only make things worse. Fuck yeah, seize the day.

QuoteRaiding is not the pinnacle of conflict achievement.

You're contributing to what has led to this discussion in the first place.  The promotion of everything having giant meaning, which is simply not the case.  Raiding is not the pinnacle of conflict achievement, but it -is- reminiscent of the danger of the in-game world.  The world is dangerous.  People are dangerous.  PK at random is also dangerous, and I don't expect you to live long.  But PK as a viable course of action is not dangerous, it's -real-.

Quote from: Armaddict on July 08, 2015, 01:03:57 AM

QuoteRaiding is not the pinnacle of conflict achievement.

expect you to live long

You're contributing to what has led to this discussion in the first place.  The promotion of everything having giant meaning, which is simply not the case.  Raiding is not the pinnacle of conflict achievement, but it -is- reminiscent of the danger of the in-game world.  The world is dangerous.  People are dangerous.  PK at random is also dangerous, and I don't expect you to live long.  But PK as a viable course of action is not dangerous, it's -real-.

Raiding can be meaningful. Here's a little secret: The last raiding group I was personally aware of was support (if not created) by an Allanaki nobleman. Plenty of meaning there while still having plenty of raiding. If you want to raid, make friends. Gain powerful allies. Don't get bored. Raid as much as you can. Don't PK every single person, but do PK when appropriate.

Why raid? Good question. Fighting dangerous beasts is dangerous, ICly takes a lot of work, often results in you having stuff you need to store until you can sell. Grebbing means working back breaking hours (until you skill up. However ICly there are plenty of Warriors whose cap on forage means they can never skill up) and is exhausting work. Raiding people for what they have can result in high returns which can let you spend a considerable amount of time sitting around, drinking ale and snorting spice. Of course it isn't the OOC road to easy riches that many take (I've certainly gone crafter/merchant. I prefer those types of roles over warriors to be honest). But it is on the OOC road to a hell of a lot of fun.

Quote from: Armaddict on July 08, 2015, 01:03:57 AM

QuoteRaiding is not the pinnacle of conflict achievement.

You're contributing to what has led to this discussion in the first place.  The promotion of everything having giant meaning, which is simply not the case.  Raiding is not the pinnacle of conflict achievement, but it -is- reminiscent of the danger of the in-game world.  The world is dangerous.  People are dangerous.  PK at random is also dangerous, and I don't expect you to live long.  But PK as a viable course of action is not dangerous, it's -real-.

One of the most awesome PC deaths I had when I started playing a long time ago (I take a lot of breaks) was getting randomly PKed by a HG who only threw one emote and attacked. It was awesome because my PC's beloved a few leagues away saw it, ran in, and tried to save my PC. We both got emotes in and basically died for each other, which given their station was ridiculous, thoughtless, and emotion driven. It was interesting.

Probably because I am an idiot all of my raiders have been short lived. If someone raids and has fun with it and even succeeds with it to the frustration of others that is fine. It is like any other role. If you don't like raiders, hire the Byn.

The only really successful raiders I've seen in the last ten years have been the Red Fangs and various gicker groups. No, it doesn't count as something else if a couple people are a ranger, warrior or assassin, and the rest are whirans or sorcs. You're a gicker group.

The Red Fangs succeeded because they had a clan infrastructure. You could app into the Red Fangs, and be slotted into the action. A lot of them would die, but the most badass would live, and then mentor new Fangs. It's unrealistic to expect a raiding group without clan support to manage that. Some is going to be flippant and say they can, but the reality is, there is a world of difference between recruiting people you can trust to have your back, and having people app into your clan and automatically have that pact, history and understanding. You're automatically all on the same page. That only happens outside a clan, with weeks and weeks of RP, or OOC coordination.

Gickers succeed because it's very easy to make a gicker dangerous. You don't have to invest half a RL year into your character. And gickers, when they cooperate, tend to become exponentially more deadly. There's been some very successful gicker outlaw groups. If these groups persist long enough, they will attract various mundane servants.

But what we don't see, is any highly successful non-clan and non-gicker raiders. It's something I've given a lot of thought to, to how to get around. I'm not going to get into it here, but it's hard to not reiterate these points. I think there's a lot of unrealistic talk in this thread about the PC raiding experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrNLv76sCJQ

I dunno about all of you but I clicked 'bring it on, bitch' before reading a single word in this thread.

More raiders pls. I'll be the change next pc or sommat.

QuoteBut what we don't see, is any highly successful non-clan and non-gicker raiders. It's something I've given a lot of thought to, to how to get around. I'm not going to get into it here, but it's hard to not reiterate these points. I think there's a lot of unrealistic talk in this thread about the PC raiding experience.

What's your definition of 'highly successful'?  Because again, pretty sure you're wrong again, this time against characters of my own.  If think they should all reach bushman-levels of fame to be successful raiders, theeeennnn...I'd say your problem is your bar being set too high.

Quote from: Armaddict on July 08, 2015, 11:10:34 AM

QuoteBut what we don't see, is any highly successful non-clan and non-gicker raiders. It's something I've given a lot of thought to, to how to get around. I'm not going to get into it here, but it's hard to not reiterate these points. I think there's a lot of unrealistic talk in this thread about the PC raiding experience.

What's your definition of 'highly successful'?  Because again, pretty sure you're wrong again, this time against characters of my own.  If think they should all reach bushman-levels of fame to be successful raiders, theeeennnn...I'd say your problem is your bar being set too high.

Quite the strawman there. I expect what most people regard as highly succesful, whether a raider or anything else, is to be able to carry out the intended role and persist long enough to have actually played the role, as opposed to raiding once and then dying of the consequences within a week which is what seems to be the norm. When I ask around, nobody can tell me about a succesful raider since "back in the day."

Meanwhile, I think there'd be much more conflict and raiding if it didn't take several RL months to become a skilled fighter. I don't see the benefit in that. It clearly holds the game back and makes people disinclined to do the things that should be happening in the game. Not just raiding but any form of risk-taking, making enemies, being the antagonist, or simply breaking the stifling banality of going through the motions day in day out.

Quote from: Fergie on July 08, 2015, 11:15:29 AM

Quote from: Armaddict on July 08, 2015, 11:10:34 AM

QuoteBut what we don't see, is any highly successful non-clan and non-gicker raiders. It's something I've given a lot of thought to, to how to get around. I'm not going to get into it here, but it's hard to not reiterate these points. I think there's a lot of unrealistic talk in this thread about the PC raiding experience.

What's your definition of 'highly successful'?  Because again, pretty sure you're wrong again, this time against characters of my own.  If think they should all reach bushman-levels of fame to be successful raiders, theeeennnn...I'd say your problem is your bar being set too high.

Quite the strawman there. I expect what most people regard as highly succesful, whether a raider or anything else, is to be able to carry out the intended role and persist long enough to have actually played the role, as opposed to raiding once and then dying of the consequences within a week which is what seems to be the norm. When I ask around, nobody can tell me about a succesful raider since "back in the day."

There was one in the last year that I'd classify as pretty successful. He lived for many months after he started raiding, and I suspect the player ultimately let the character get captured as opposed to just getting ganked by player cheese.

One raider doesn't really make for a dangerous environment though, but I wanted to point out that someone has done it recently so if anyone is reading this is interested in playing a raider, they'll know it can be done in the current environment even if it's maybe one of the most difficult roles in the game.

Quote from: Fergie on July 08, 2015, 11:15:29 AM

Quote from: Armaddict on July 08, 2015, 11:10:34 AM

QuoteBut what we don't see, is any highly successful non-clan and non-gicker raiders. It's something I've given a lot of thought to, to how to get around. I'm not going to get into it here, but it's hard to not reiterate these points. I think there's a lot of unrealistic talk in this thread about the PC raiding experience.

What's your definition of 'highly successful'?  Because again, pretty sure you're wrong again, this time against characters of my own.  If think they should all reach bushman-levels of fame to be successful raiders, theeeennnn...I'd say your problem is your bar being set too high.

Quite the strawman there. I expect what most people regard as highly succesful, whether a raider or anything else, is to be able to carry out the intended role and persist long enough to have actually played the role, as opposed to raiding once and then dying of the consequences within a week which is what seems to be the norm. When I ask around, nobody can tell me about a succesful raider since "back in the day."

Meanwhile, I think there'd be much more conflict and raiding if it didn't take several RL months to become a skilled fighter. I don't see the benefit in that. It clearly holds the game back and makes people disinclined to do the things that should be happening in the game. Not just raiding but any form of risk-taking, making enemies, being the antagonist, or simply breaking the stifling banality of going through the motions day in day out.

That is not a strawman.  I literally asked for clarification on his basis of making a claim, and advanced a suggestion of what the current claim seemed to say, and why that would not be a good claim.  However, with the rest of your post, if you feel like every person trying to play a raider should reach some legendary status, then I think you should re-examine the game you're playing.  Part of the 'issue' a lot of people have with Armageddon is that they want their characters...all of them...to have some deep, lasting impact on the game world, when it is actually specifically designed for us to be ants on an ant farm.  Making larger impacts is a rare occurrence that should bring some pride.  Famous, long-reaching characters happen, but it's an achievement, not a rule.

What you seem to be claiming is...like saying that if this were Diablo, everyone has made a hardcore character, but nothing should ever prevent each of those characters from reaching level <arbitrary high level, doesn't matter>.  People engaged in constant high-risk combat tend to die at some point, even when they've done well up until that point.

Meanwhile...

QuoteWhen I ask around, nobody can tell me about a succesful raider since "back in the day."

Which is blatantly ignoring the discussion about raiding that's been going on previously about why that is, and asserting that combat code needs a change, despite it being...pretty much the same, if not easier, as the 'back in the day' days.

Always up for more conflict, as long as its thought out and such.

So, bring it on  >:(

Quote from: John on July 07, 2015, 07:35:34 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 01:49:41 PMPCs don't kill long-lived PCs. NPCs do.

This has not been my experience circa 2002-2006.

I don't really get the animosity towards player driven conflict. Murder. Betrayal.  Corruption. IMO 90% of the populace should be striving to include this as part of their characters' lives every single day. If I'm understanding people correctly dismissing that as Total Allanak Drama seems antithetical to the game. I don't know if this resistance is an artifact of Tuluk being closed, but I was always under the impression that Tuluk had these things as well.

Banding together to face a common threat shouldn't be SOP. If you hear about someone being threatened by danger X your first thought should be "how can I take advantage of this situation" not "Let us form the Light Brigade for the greater good and defeat this threat so that we may all live in harmony."

Apologies if I've misunderstood people's points.

I don't know if I agree with purposefully dosing your play with MCB(maybe a little bit is fine).  I like it to happen as a natural byproduct of decisions in a plot, because you actually want to succeed in your goals enough to do so.  Not like "Okay, how can I corrupt someone today?"  It becomes very comic book and inauthentic.

Quote from: Fergie on July 08, 2015, 11:15:29 AM

Quote from: Armaddict on July 08, 2015, 11:10:34 AM

QuoteBut what we don't see, is any highly successful non-clan and non-gicker raiders. It's something I've given a lot of thought to, to how to get around. I'm not going to get into it here, but it's hard to not reiterate these points. I think there's a lot of unrealistic talk in this thread about the PC raiding experience.

What's your definition of 'highly successful'?  Because again, pretty sure you're wrong again, this time against characters of my own.  If think they should all reach bushman-levels of fame to be successful raiders, theeeennnn...I'd say your problem is your bar being set too high.

Quite the strawman there. I expect what most people regard as highly succesful, whether a raider or anything else, is to be able to carry out the intended role and persist long enough to have actually played the role, as opposed to raiding once and then dying of the consequences within a week which is what seems to be the norm. When I ask around, nobody can tell me about a succesful raider since "back in the day."

Fergie pretty much nails it. But to more directly answer your query, Arm, I don't set the bar at 'Bushman' levels.

I set the bar at any mundane raiding band attaining any kind of notoriety and continuity at all, and who wouldn't be immediately smashed by any couple of indie GMH hunters that happened to find them in the wastes. In fact, my baseline for being 'highly successful' is extremely modest: If any significant individual, whether GMH/delf hunters or Byn patrol, has ever thought twice about entering your territory...Then you are successful.

If a semi-decent fighter has ever heard you were about, and their first reaction was to head to the gates, and not to get a huge, excited hard-on at the prospect of killing the local raider - then you have been successful. I applaud your raiding attempts, but I don't think you, or the fellow that Narf mentioned, qualify under even these lenient terms. Because loners typically can't manage this, unless they're gickers. They need allies.

Gicker outlaws tend to accumulate and bind to each other like fungus. They have a lot of mutual influences pushing them together. Mundane raiders don't have that same attraction. It's just very hard to skill up a mundane character on one's own, and without even a place to safely spar, and it's nigh impossible to find several like-minded people who can manage that, who don't join more secure and supported clans. This is why, in the last ten to fifteen years, it's only happened once or twice to any meaningful extent. Where it has happened, has required borderline cheating levels of OOC coordination and familiarity among players.

A possible solution might be to designate an outpost in the world, like the mul outpost or Red Storm East, or something similar, and give it a more obvious 'bad' reputation, like a wasteland version of the 'rinth with no crime code. But obviously, NPCs that will defend themselves. If people start out there, then they can be mutually considered beyond the pale of civilization, and have that mutual background/understanding, like a pirate city in the past. I don't think Red Storm qualifies, since it's basically become the Allanaki Hamptons.

Mundane raiders are kind've like Fermi paradox. There might be trillions of stars and galaxies out there, which inevitably means that some life will appear - but they exist, and then snuff out, like sparks of light. Life never happens at the same time or proximity, allowing two intelligent civilizations to interact. They make a little trouble, and then they get crushed. There's no opportunity for say, Arm's raider, and Narf's anecdotal raider, to get together and cooperate.

Gickers are a bit different, since virtually every gicker, that doesn't have a dull black gem, and who isn't an elf, is already in an outlaw mindset. That gives them an unspoken commonality. There are exceptions, but these characters, if long-lived, tend to coalesce into sizeable and extremely dangerous groups.

Red Storm. I don't know what Hamptons are, but Change It.  :D

Quote from: solera on July 08, 2015, 03:06:54 PM
Red Storm. I don't know what Hamptons are, but Change It.  :D

Problem with Red Storm is that it can't be changed. It functions more or less like Allanak. Gates open at dawn. Gates close at dusk. It has an insane level of extremely dangerous NPC guards (many of them hidden) crowded inside. If you're in Storm, and you're not in an alley, you best be watching yourself. It's easier to do bad things in Allanak, ironically enough.

What I'd like to see is an outpost that's effectively the wasteland version of the 'rinth. There'd be just barely enough infrastructure for people to start there, but it would definitely have its own seedy, lawless culture.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 08, 2015, 03:31:56 PM

Quote from: solera on July 08, 2015, 03:06:54 PM
Red Storm. I don't know what Hamptons are, but Change It.  :D

Problem with Red Storm is that it can't be changed. It functions more or less like Allanak. Gates open at dawn. Gates close at dusk. It has an insane level of extremely dangerous NPC guards (many of them hidden) crowded inside. If you're in Storm, and you're not in an alley, you best be watching yourself. It's easier to do bad things in Allanak, ironically enough.

What I'd like to see is an outpost that's effectively the wasteland version of the 'rinth. There'd be just barely enough infrastructure for people to start there, but it would definitely have its own seedy, lawless culture.

Populate the mul outpost!

As far as the successful raider.  I guess that's just relative.  I've felt pretty successful with some of mine, but I suppose that's what the issue is.  You want more out of the character.  I don't build raiders to make a big name, I build raiders to try and bring the danger of the world to as many people who disrespect it or haven't experienced it as possible.  Funnily enough, most of my raiders do -not- die to other pc's.  They die to beasts or...stupidity, because Zalanthas kills people.

I disagree that there haven't been any successful raiders in 10 years.

If you have heard of any group, they were probably successful on your scale, because you don't tend to hear about them until they've raided at least a number of individuals or groups.

And even if you haven't heard of them, that doesn't mean they don't exist.  I've heard of a few that seemed worthy of note.

Quote from: Armaddict on July 08, 2015, 04:09:35 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 08, 2015, 03:31:56 PM

Quote from: solera on July 08, 2015, 03:06:54 PM
Red Storm. I don't know what Hamptons are, but Change It.  :D

Problem with Red Storm is that it can't be changed. It functions more or less like Allanak. Gates open at dawn. Gates close at dusk. It has an insane level of extremely dangerous NPC guards (many of them hidden) crowded inside. If you're in Storm, and you're not in an alley, you best be watching yourself. It's easier to do bad things in Allanak, ironically enough.

What I'd like to see is an outpost that's effectively the wasteland version of the 'rinth. There'd be just barely enough infrastructure for people to start there, but it would definitely have its own seedy, lawless culture.

Populate the mul outpost!

As far as the successful raider.  I guess that's just relative.  I've felt pretty successful with some of mine, but I suppose that's what the issue is.  You want more out of the character.  I don't build raiders to make a big name, I build raiders to try and bring the danger of the world to as many people who disrespect it or haven't experienced it as possible.  Funnily enough, most of my raiders do -not- die to other pc's.  They die to beasts or...stupidity, because Zalanthas kills people.

That's my great dream, for my next character. Which might be awhile. My current one is a blast.

Quote from: James de Monet on July 08, 2015, 04:56:16 PM
I disagree that there haven't been any successful raiders in 10 years.

If you have heard of any group, they were probably successful on your scale, because you don't tend to hear about them until they've raided at least a number of individuals or groups.

And even if you haven't heard of them, that doesn't mean they don't exist.  I've heard of a few that seemed worthy of note.

There's been successful groups, but they fall outside my arbitrary definitions, which revolve around how mundane they are, how organically they came about, and how feared they were.

In the end, it's just my opinion. I do intend to do something about it, eventually.

After all, we all have different definitions of success. My definition of success is making people fearful of entering a certain territory, and even paying tribute for the right to operate there, without being a sorcerer or a whiran. If a group of mundane raiders could get a tribe or a GMH to bribe them to behave, I'd consider them extremely successful.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 08, 2015, 03:40:36 AM
The Red Fangs succeeded because they had a clan infrastructure. You could app into the Red Fangs, and be slotted into the action. A lot of them would die, but the most badass would live, and then mentor new Fangs.

I figured they succeeded because they were utterly undetectable with the right gear, could one-shot their targets from three rooms away, could run forever in the desert, and always had moved their base camp by the time some response could be organized. I.e. enormous coded advantages.

Quote from: Eyeball on July 08, 2015, 05:20:42 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 08, 2015, 03:40:36 AM
The Red Fangs succeeded because they had a clan infrastructure. You could app into the Red Fangs, and be slotted into the action. A lot of them would die, but the most badass would live, and then mentor new Fangs.

I figured they succeeded because they were utterly undetectable with the right gear, could one-shot their targets from three rooms away, could run forever in the desert, and always had moved their base camp by the time some response could be organized. I.e. enormous coded advantages.

Well. You've basically described all desert elves and GMH rangers with decent mounts and bows. None of what you described is unique to the RFs, and one could get into various debates regarding mounted rangers vs delf rangers, and have pros/cons for each. Nothing is safer than a city to return to, and GMHs had bases in every city.

What made the Red Fangs effective, despite their enormous turnovers and fatality rates, was new players being able to apply into the clan, having that instant kinship, and then the cream of the crop surviving and rising to the top. Sort've like the T'zai Byn, except the cream doesn't plunge to its death on a regular basis.

I could have a Red Fang die, go play something else for a while, then come back and app another Red Fang, and slot right in. That's a powerful cultural and organizational advantage, and far exceeded any coded advantage (of which there was none, that were unique to RFs).

EDIT: And from what I recall, by far the best gear that RFs had access to was that stolen/bought from other tribes/clans, like the Sun Runners, etc. This was before mastercraft submissions were a real thing.

Is it wrong that I want to chop up mufuckaz with obsidian longswords sometimes instead of bone longswords? ???

Quote from: Tetra on July 08, 2015, 12:43:34 PM

Quote from: John on July 07, 2015, 07:35:34 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 07, 2015, 01:49:41 PMPCs don't kill long-lived PCs. NPCs do.

This has not been my experience circa 2002-2006.

I don't really get the animosity towards player driven conflict. Murder. Betrayal.  Corruption. IMO 90% of the populace should be striving to include this as part of their characters' lives every single day. If I'm understanding people correctly dismissing that as Total Allanak Drama seems antithetical to the game. I don't know if this resistance is an artifact of Tuluk being closed, but I was always under the impression that Tuluk had these things as well.

Banding together to face a common threat shouldn't be SOP. If you hear about someone being threatened by danger X your first thought should be "how can I take advantage of this situation" not "Let us form the Light Brigade for the greater good and defeat this threat so that we may all live in harmony."

Apologies if I've misunderstood people's points.

I don't know if I agree with purposefully dosing your play with MCB(maybe a little bit is fine).  I like it to happen as a natural byproduct of decisions in a plot, because you actually want to succeed in your goals enough to do so.  Not like "Okay, how can I corrupt someone today?"  It becomes very comic book and inauthentic.

See my subsequent posts that explain what I mean.

Quote from: Rhyden on July 08, 2015, 06:50:43 PM
Is it wrong that I want to chop up mufuckaz with obsidian longswords sometimes instead of bone longswords? ???

That's a really complicated question and impossible to answer on the GDB as many factors contribute to the answer. Also, find out ic.

I didn't mean to sound like I was touting raiding as the silver bullet that was going to cure this stagnation that has settled upon the game (henceforth referred to as "Arm with Friends") in the last few years. But the absence of any real player-vs-player danger is definitely felt these days.

I certainly agree that good PvP is what we need, not just senseless killing. If I thought senseless killing was fun, I wouldn't have bothered making this post. I would have rolled up a string of "hulking" 4 foot tall buttfuck dwarves (jumping off the Shield Wall until I got an AI) and proceeded to slab every salt grebber in sight. Hell, with my frequent breaks and sporadic playtimes, I could probably make a decent go of this guy too! But that's not really appealing to me. I try to bring the grittiness and meanness into my characters, but it takes a more willing and risk-taking player base than what I currently see looking around to reciprocate. You won't believe how many of these scrubs will act tough and threaten you... but then never follow through. Never agree to "take it out side."

I would love to see some outlaw groups form, but as others have said that's unlikely to happen for a number of reasons:

• Arm with Friends has seen a drastic reduction in quit/save rooms out in the far-flung desert. I believe it was in an effort to congregate the hugging-base. At any rate, if you're not a ranger you're going to have a hard time finding places to log off.
• While Armageddon used to favor groups with some measure of support from time to time, in Arm with Friends 12 people with 100 hours of logs couldn't manage a decently stacked pile of rocks without the arrange command. (Know the copper mines? Before there was copper there it was a sekret raiding HQ.) I guess you could try making a raiding merchant house though.
• The bored and untested masses would race off to kill you at the first sign of a ripple in the stagnant pool of Arm with Friends. You'd have a fifty-day warrior after you, anxious to get his first taste of non-mob combat almost before you had your first set of boots sold.
• Having chopped down Sorcerors in favor of the mini-sorc extended subs, the game has lost the one class that is actually capable of standing against the world, as it were. Don't get me wrong, the mini-sorc subs seem awesome, but nothing could compare the sorceror in terms of being an effective villain that didn't necessarily have to cheat or kill everyone they cross just to stay alive.

BadSkeels, I would agree with you that some of the plots the imms can cook up and run are much more interesting than the PvP friction we, as players, can manage. You keep mentioning how awesome that spider plot was two years ago. That plot... two years ago...  The problem with PvImm is the long months between them. Also, a PvImm plotline can really only involve a handful of PCs. So, when an army of Mantis shows up at the west gate it's a great time to be had by the AOD and the Byn, but where does that leave the GMH clannies? The rinthis? The unaffiliated commoners? The tavern sitter brigade? Sure, in times of great peril they could all probably willingly volunteer, but very often plots are only for a particular clan. One of my favorite RPTs in recent memory was the Jade Cross raid. Amazingly fun meat grinder. Added so much depth to my character. But it involved... the Byn. And only the Byn. The AOD didn't even come along to take out a raider camp a short ride from the gates.

I always bring up the spider plot because it's a favorite of mine and most every other ImmPlot I've done has been a little too recent (1-2 years) that I can't quite talk about the character involved freely yet.

For the Jade Cross thing, I'd have to check back why the AoD wasn't in at the kill. I think it had a lot to do with scheduling, and the fact that a bunch of soldiers had recently gotten killed in some pretty inane MCB action. No clan, no action.

I will disagree with you on Imm plots having a limited number of participants. You involve the militia, the Byn, and potentially a Noble or Merchant house and you're looking at a dozen people easily. A lot more than what I typically see involved directly in PVP plots, which are usually just three or four knuckleheads throwing knives at each other.

For your concern that ImmPlots don't involve "the GMH, rinthis, unaffiliated, and tavern sitters", the best way of counter-acting that is for the plot to threaten them. Random PCs getting attacked in the streets, threats to multiple spheres of influence. It's been my experience that PCs start fighting amongst themselves when they're bored. Why are they bored? Because the gameworld is pretty damn safe once you learn the big Danger Zones. ImmPlots have the advantage of catching the playerbase off guard. You might think you're safe in a tavern until someone lobs a grenade in.

Would I love to see more events of that scale be purely player driven? Sure. But with the structure of the  gameworld (even sponsored-role PCs are "nobodies") and the game itself limiting how much players can accomplish, these big interesting plots are dependent on staff support or staff initiative. I like to build up a character for them, collecting friends, scars and enemies in the meantime. Not sacrifice myself at the altar of MCB after the first instance of UNFORGIVABLE INSULT from someone.

Okay, what the hell is MCB? I keep seeing the acronym in this post, and some others.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 10, 2015, 02:43:38 PM
For the Jade Cross thing, I'd have to check back why the AoD wasn't in at the kill. I think it had a lot to do with scheduling, and the fact that a bunch of soldiers had recently gotten killed in some pretty inane MCB action. No clan, no action.

AoD wasn't a part of the Jade Crosses RPT because the Byn sergeant at the time didn't want people moving in on his kill. Also there were about 30 fucking runners that needed to die.

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 10, 2015, 02:56:10 PM
Okay, what the hell is MCB? I keep seeing the acronym in this post, and some others.

(http://www.armageddon.org/images/nofiretext_template.png)

Quote from: bcw81 on July 10, 2015, 02:58:07 PM
AoD wasn't a part of the Jade Crosses RPT because the Byn sergeant at the time didn't want people moving in on his kill. Also there were about 30 fucking runners that needed to die.

Ah, gotcha. Which suited me fine as an AoD leader: didn't have much of a clan and was happy to farm out some fun to another group of PCs. I'd also just recently killed one of the Jade Cross Raiders in city (and a kid who got in the crossfire) so I was feeling magnanimous.

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 10, 2015, 02:56:10 PM
Okay, what the hell is MCB? I keep seeing the acronym in this post, and some others.

I assumed it's "Murder Corruption Betrayal" but that's a guess on my part.

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 09, 2015, 10:07:33 PM
BadSkeels, I would agree with you that some of the plots the imms can cook up and run are much more interesting than the PvP friction we, as players, can manage. You keep mentioning how awesome that spider plot was two years ago. That plot... two years ago...  The problem with PvImm is the long months between them.

Running plots is an incredibly intensive use of staff time. I cannot over-stress how taxing it is on staff time and stamina. I finished running a big plot at the end of May and I am still tired and not yet ready to contemplate another big plot. In between staff-run plots, players have to do their part.

Not to mention, in the middle of a big plot it is difficult to get any other game work done. Plots are great but that's not everything we're working on. We have to make choices.

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 09, 2015, 10:07:33 PMAlso, a PvImm plotline can really only involve a handful of PCs. So, when an army of Mantis shows up at the west gate it's a great time to be had by the AOD and the Byn, but where does that leave the GMH clannies? The rinthis? The unaffiliated commoners? The tavern sitter brigade?

We actually make significant efforts to involve various clans in big plots, if the plots are planned to be regional or inter-clan. But it is not completely up to staff to make sure that players get involved--we frequently encounter players who outright refuse to become involved or to involve other PCs in their clans. (The most common manifestation of this is, "Shh, Amos, don't tell anyone about what we just saw! Keep it between us, we'll do nothing, and it will go away!) There's really nothing we can do about that.

Sometimes we do run plots that are mostly focused on a single clan. Even those tend to have spillover effects.

Ok, personally, I think I agree with Case, and this doesn't happen often, but also, Badskillz. The trouble, imo, is that too many people are "playing to win" and PKing at the first sign of inconvenience, this means, no escalation of tension, no plot developement, no possibility of negotiation or for one party to back off, and no story left over afterwards, because, if there were clues then what really happened may be discovered, and that's not how you "play to win". While I agree, there is definitely a place for "Murder, corruption, betrayal", as someone said earlier, if you're going to OOCly motivate your character to engage in these acts at every available opportunity, like some dwarf with a focus, then are you really playing you character as believably as possible? Or is it simply a machine designed to carry out the game's tagline? It's the latter I have an issue with.

It's ever been my experience that one needn't look far for conflict, indeed, if you are engaging anyone, anyone at all, even in innocent conversation, it will come to you. What happens next is crucial to story development, and sadly, requires some trust between the anonymous parties involved that they will both play their characters in a believable fashion, and consider the overall storyline more important than this one instance, and their character specifically. If there isn't that degree of unspoken trust between you and the other player, then you need to quickly assess "How important are my character's contributions to the plotlines of others?", and if they're "More than that lazy jackhole over there.", then you really have little option than to strike fast, and first. I've payed for trying to give people the benefit of the doubt before. It's just not worth it, despite the potential for fun and interesting conflict, it all too often boils down to, as Badskillz said, four or five knuckleheads hurling knives at eachother.

As someone else said, if we want to see more conflict happen in game, then the risk/reward ratio needs to be adjusted. It takes so long to develop a character's coded skill to anywhere near passable, that even when you have the skills, -especially- once you've put the work in, engaging in any sort of risky behavior quickly slides down the steeply tilted risk/reward scale and off the table, so, little happens. And, as characters live longer, amass more influence, especially if they're clanned, they become more and more difficult to engage in any sort of conflict with, particularly because the whole assessment of both players as to whose PC is driving more plotlines and engaging more people becomes even more skewed, and unless something drastic happens to pick that steaming mess back up off the floor, ham-fistedly yank the scales down and plop it back down, it's not going to happen, at least, not between players.

I don't really understand the desire to participate in meaningless, or particularly detrimental PK. After all, if you take the easy kill, where's the thrill of the hunt? That's like some power levelled ten year old camping the newbie quest areas and spawn points to indulge their own ego, probably because they can't hold their own, even in mass, against a similarly strong opponent who can actually Play The Game. You'd think it'd get old after a while, but there are some players who do exactly this, thankfully, I don't think many last long on Arm, and for that, I'm grateful.

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 06, 2015, 11:35:58 PM
I'm going to preface this by saying that, in about a decade of playing Arm, I've pulled maybe 12 PKs. Maybe 20 tops. And that's distributed between abusive homicidal assholes, true neutral mercenaries, and genuine good guys pushed into a corner. I usually like to play indies, keep to myself, not bother anyone, and explore. At a rate of 1-2 PKs a year, I think it's safe to say that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a bloodthirsty player.

Thank you for taking the time to organize this post.  Your ideas and your writing were logically constructed and clearly explained.  It seems to have stimulated any number of other interesting points to be brought up.

I would like to point something out - that part of what your observing now as a problem is the evolution from a game where *all* conflict was lethal.  If someone was bothering you, you simply killed them or had them killed.  You didn't want to take the chance that they'd retaliate against you, so you wiped them out.  

In one case I had a character PK'd by Kurac because my character was seen having an ale with the wrong person.  That sort of thing is not really bad enough for me to cry foul, but it really reduces my interest in having further conflicts with these players.

The way the game is now, there is a *lot* more conflict, but it's usually more personal, and usually nonlethal.  It's a lot easier to ignite conflict because you don't necessarily have to worry about loosing your character.  That possibility still exists, but fortunately many other beautiful and diverse options are now on the table for ruining someone's day.

Quote from: Synthesis on July 07, 2015, 12:56:06 PM
Yeah, I've been raided once, had my ENTIRE INVENTORY cleaned out by pickpockets twice, and had noobs try to kite aggro mobs to me twice...all in the last month or so.

Yeah, I'm with Synthesis on this.  In recent memory, I was PK'd by desert elves, PK'd in my clan compound, died while collecting intel/recon/spying, pickpocketed, burglarized twice, bullied (twice), insulted, belittled, threatened, shaken down, robbed by my clan leader, kicked out of my tribe, jumped by an ungemmed, and treated to any amount of abuse based on my character's race and ugliness.  I'm surprised anyone thinks the game could be harder than this.  I just didn't want to seem contradictory.

Quote from: Drayab on July 07, 2015, 11:10:30 AM
I think part of the phenomenon of more long-lived PCs around can be attributed to an aging player base. I play more cautiously than I used to because I have become better at assessing risk. Or maybe I've just mellowed out, I don't know.

Yeah.  Actually, the reason why I pretty much never PK is because the way the combat code is, the only people you can reliably PK are noobs, and I'm not satisfied that this adds much to the game.  Instead, I try to seek out other *players* that I like, and then rob, abuse, bully and strong-arm their characters.  And then I switch sides.

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on July 07, 2015, 03:39:05 AM
It should be bad roleplay for a templar or soldiers, to give a shit about you being raided, unless you are Highborn, or possibly GMH family.

I disagree.  I don't think that any Templar wants to be seen as weak or ineffectual.  So Joe the obsidian miner gets robbed?  No problem, you'll look into it.  
So you have a unit of troops make a loop around the Outer Circle to look for elves or whatever.  You don't want to be seen as doing nothing.  But because you're a corrupt Templar, you've already embezzled half of your military budget so you don't have any money to pay the soldiers over-time.  And because you're corrupt, you're not really monitoring your soldiers that carefully, and they're probably doing a shitty job.  They either catch nobody or they pin the entire thing on some elf that they don't like.  The elf is paraded around the commons to a jeering crowd for maximum political effect, before the soldiers strip the elf, beat the elf and then quietly toss him into an ally.  The elf pick-pockets one of the soldiers in the process and ends up thinking that he's got the better of them.
Problem solved, no?

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 07, 2015, 02:54:59 PM
Armageddon used to have a lot of conflict-driven clan vs clan, or tribe vs drive competition. The most obvious example was Allanak vs Tuluk. But there were the Red Fangs, and others. Armageddon doesn't have that anymore. Clans/tribes also provide an infrastructure for potential antagonists. It's not like, invest 10 days in a loner ranger, raid one person, then get fucked. You got a support network.

Yeah.  But as the staff have alluded, it was actually players who shut a lot of this down.  I disagree with (Talia?) that players nuked all of the malicious actors our of spite.  I think the players that did this, did it out of a lack of restraint.

Too many players are activist players.  You have to be really careful about nuking an entire clan.  Stomping out a criminal gang, even if it's something that your character wants to do, shouldn't be something that you as a player want to do.  If you want to play a crime-fighting character, it's probably better to play an impotent or incompetent crime-fighting character.

If you really want to play a competent crime fighter, then make sure that you let the Joker get away by the skin of his teeth.  All of the other players *know* that you could have caught the Joker, but we're all much happier with you throwing the baby fish back so that you'll have something else to chase some other day.

EDIT:  Wanted to add that I agree with people that it's too hard to play a raider.  I think this is something better left to NPC anyway, which isn't my way of discouraging people from playing raiders.  Rather, I think players should mostly be playing cut-throats, outlaws, spies, lawmen, warlords, gangsters and soldiers.  The whole raider thing requires too much effort for a role that's bound to be isolated anyway.  NPC can raid people just fine.  The difference between a tarantula and a raider, at the end of the day is that a raider is a tarantula with slightly better targeting ability.  Staff should be playing these roles ....perhaps occasionally supplementing their ranks with privateers and mercenaries. 

Also, I agree with Ibusoe, IAmJacksOpinion, thanks for starting this thread, as it seems to have spawned a conversation debating the subtleties and appropriateness of certain actions, which, it would be nice if people could clarify and expend upon what, exactly, is considered good or poor form. Expecting  PK not to happen is definitely unrealistic, given the setting, but I think a lot of the perception of harshness is subject to debate, and that potentially, some have different viewpoints on just how much is necessary to facilitate immersion in the setting, how much is too much, and how much is not enough. How much of this is up to the players to enforce? I'd say it's fine/maybe a tad too much where it is now, but this is my opinion.

I know in the glory hack and slash days of old, PKing was much more common. As I seem to find myself simply repeating what others have said, I feel no need to cease such practice now... I agree that, arguably, the game has evolved, not devolved, and that movement in a certain direction isn't necessarily the decay of the old, but the growth of the new. Will there be growing pains? Yes, there always is. There may be things that all of us have trouble accepting from time to time, this doesn't mean that we're wrong, or the ones disagreeing with us are wrong, but simply that there is room, and need for, meaningful discussion of the topic. I can't wait to see what more is said on the matter, and look forward to the questions it causes me to ask myself.

While the wording often gets skewed in the flow of the discussion...I think some of the pro-PK points were more directed not towards 'Everyone should kill more', but 'Everyone should allow killing more'.  I can understand what you say about the movement of the game, Rev, but I will argue very directly with the idea that the game population, as a whole, should frown on conflict ending in death, and even moreso against IC actions taken of uninvolved parties banding together to right the perceived wrongs of someone who deigned to try to kill someone else.

That is, in effect, I think the basis of the pro-pk discussion.  It's allowed, it's viable, it's reasonable, and it is not a detriment to the game like people keep asserting it is.  It's fine for there to be long, non-death-inducing conflicts.  But some of them -do- escalate.  Some people -do- survive off of someone else's lack of survival.  And that's just the way -that- world works, even if the one we, the players, live in, sees that as injustice.

I'm just always disappointed when no one tries to kill my pcs. It makes me feel like I'm being too bland.

Quote from: Armaddict on July 10, 2015, 06:45:13 PM
While the wording often gets skewed in the flow of the discussion...I think some of the pro-PK points were more directed not towards 'Everyone should kill more', but 'Everyone should allow killing more'.  I can understand what you say about the movement of the game, Rev, but I will argue very directly with the idea that the game population, as a whole, should frown on conflict ending in death, and even moreso against IC actions taken of uninvolved parties banding together to right the perceived wrongs of someone who deigned to try to kill someone else.

That is, in effect, I think the basis of the pro-pk discussion.  It's allowed, it's viable, it's reasonable, and it is not a detriment to the game like people keep asserting it is.  It's fine for there to be long, non-death-inducing conflicts.  But some of them -do- escalate.  Some people -do- survive off of someone else's lack of survival.  And that's just the way -that- world works, even if the one we, the players, live in, sees that as injustice.

Yeah, it's allowed, but as it's been put to me, "Just because you -can-, doesn't mean you -should-."

I mean, I'm the last one to PK anyone, I try not to interfere too much in the plots of others, more of a wait, see, and keep to myself sort, usually. Why am I not allowed to roll a rogue Krathi/Drovian? Too much power, can't be trusted... yeah, like I'm going to roll in and just blow up the Gaj one day.

I recall, a situation a couple or few years back, where, for mysterious reasons I really do not understand, my nobody breed salter assassin/hunter (not entirely a nobody, he had his little, self-involved plots going on that were enjoyable to me and those involved) was ambushed out on the salt, by a rogue whiran. Why? I never figured that out, I escaped, without getting a look at my attacker. This would have been fine, had I not been pursued into a tavern and repeatedly assaulted, despite the virtual and NPC Templar situation. This went on for hours. I won't go into the specifics because that may be revealing a bit too much about the powers a whiran possesses. Still, it was highly disrespectful of the virtual environment and indicative of a problematic, and wholly uncalled for, and irrationally and suicidally pursuing mind-set. I sent in a report about that. Luckily, my PC survived, but never was answered the "why" of it all.

I only wish this were an isolated incident, and it's all the more shocking that it involved a player with the amount of "staff trust" to play such a guild, but it happens far more often than I'd care, or be able to, admit. And I'M the one that's going to blow up a Byn warband? Please. Consider my trust in players thoroughly damaged. So yes, I'm not, by any means, pro-PK. I'm also not anti-PK, I'm just saying, within reason, and with moderation, forethought, and introspection, yeah, corrupt, betray and murder those fuckers. But, think of the kittens.

Further, who are you to decide who's "uninvolved"? If you just go kill some random jerkwad and it's witnessed, and a lynch-mob forms, maybe there's a number of things you should have learned about your target before killing them, but decided "corruption murder betrayal, derp" *ding*, because obviously the mob weren't "uninvolved", despite outward appearances (although, I'm sure this, too, happens from time to time, and I'd say, when truly "uninvolved" parties do get "involved", it's OOCly motivated, but lets not kid ourselves, a lot of players have their PCs do things all the time that are OOCly motivated, stamping THAT out, I've found, is practically impossible). Yes, conflict ending in death is a very serious part of the game, but undue escalation, just cranking that shit up to 11 at the slightest provocation, is not really beneficial to the situation, nor is it in line with the idea of "self-preservation", but I see it all the time.

There ARE players that just want to be left alone, attempt to do as little as possible to provoke anyone, and to make amends when it's beneficial to them. This is just good RP, as it shows a sense of self-preservation, as Zalanthans, according to the docs, are highly opposed to the idea of suicide... still, there are other players, that, for whatever reason, feel the need to either step down from their station, or out of their element, to get involved in something that, quite frankly, is not a concern of theirs, and proceed to wreck things in the name of "murder, corruption, and betrayal", which, is an OOC concept, meant to encourage a certain kind of play, but not necessarily to be a mantra for every, single, interaction you might have. If it were up to me, I'd yank the banner down, because I think it encourages a very OOC approach to the situations found IG, when over-simplified and taken at a higher priority level than the well-written and thought out documents themselves that go in depth into what, exactly, the setting is. Am I without flaw, when it comes to following the documents to the letter? No, but I like to think I carefully weigh my priorities, and my character's priorities, before deciding on what course of action my character chooses.

Neither karma nor the three word motto are anywhere near the top of my list. Creating a believable, fleshed-out character and having them engage in a multi-player, multi-faceted, shared experience, however, IS at the top.

Mmkay.  So you took my breakdown and clarification of the pro-pk side that was being misrepresented and through the course of your post, turned it back into a 'You should not do it', thus...proving the point of the synopsis.  So there's not really anything else to say other than...exactly.

Aside from this:

QuoteFurther, who are you to decide who's "uninvolved"? If you just go kill some random jerkwad and it's witnessed, and a lynch-mob forms, maybe there's a number of things you should have learned about your target before killing them, but decided "corruption murder betrayal, derp" *ding*, because obviously the mob weren't "uninvolved", despite outward appearances (although, I'm sure this, too, happens from time to time, and I'd say, when truly "uninvolved" parties do get "involved", it's OOCly motivated, but lets not kid ourselves, a lot of players have their PCs do things all the time that are OOCly motivated, stamping THAT out, I've found, is practically impossible). Yes, conflict ending in death is a very serious part of the game, but undue escalation, just cranking that shit up to 11 at the slightest provocation, is not really beneficial to the situation, nor is it in line with the idea of "self-preservation", but I see it all the time.

Because in many cases, investigation tells why people are being sent after you, and sometimes that reason has nothing to do with the target (i.e. It isn't vengeance), but the action (i.e.  You're being a raider).  It isn't about a personal interest, it's about maintaining a peace.  And here, in specifics, I'm talking outside the city.  Inside the city, there is a...different dynamic. BUT! That was the point that was being made, that cooperation against players who used violence against other players has grown common.  And to use your own words, who are you to decide what escalations are "undue" for which characters?  Do you know exactly how worried every character is about what, what affects which characters more profoundly than others, or what motivations and plans every character is progressing along or protecting?

Modified:  *Sigh* And I did pretty much the same thing.  Basically...yes, OP, go go PK, don't go out of character and over the top with it, but promote the conflict and danger of the gameworld.  Make no one trustworthy, make us all afraid of strangers, and that -is- the way Zalanthas should be.  Don't PK just to PK, don't turn it into a 'But the rush!' sort of thing, but keep the zalanthan 'never be prey' mentality alive.  We all need to remember not to be an easy target, because our boots are just too valuable.

Having had my meek, nobody characters pursued across the known world by vast swaths of the rich and powerful, and suspected of foul play and badmouthed across the entire known world, for things my PC hadn't even done, I can empathize. Having been pressed for information by the AoD for, not having seen anything but a facewrap, a cloak, and a pair of slanted eyes, and even that being hazy because mace-to-the-head was also a bit dissappointing, as I was being threatened for not being able to remember squat but fuzzy bits. Eventually, it was coerced out of me (I was still a newb, and I really didn't want to lose my PC because the other PC was being a jerk), but not without a bit of torture "Uh, scar on his face?! Burns?!", I still didn't like the way it was handled by the authorities, because, ICly, how am I even supposed to recall that, so soon after the injuries were sustained?

Honestly liked that mul raider, gave the appropriate level of fear, and left me breathing a sigh of relief when my character died. But, I get what you're saying now, and yes, I too, find it somewhat rediculous.

EDIT: Didn't die, rather, the breed was allowed to live by the mul.

FURTHER EDIT: I think we're mostly in agreement here, Armaddict. I could be mistaken, though. Sorry for misunderstanding.

I want to address Talia's response from mid page 5ish. But first I want to say that, even though I'm vocally discontent and critical, Talia - I could not do what you do. Even minor leadership roles make this game feel too much like a part time job for me. Assistant Second Trooper of a Byn company with 3 active Sargeants? Noooo thank you!

Quote from: Talia on July 10, 2015, 03:16:14 PM
Running plots is an incredibly intensive use of staff time. I cannot over-stress how taxing it is on staff time and stamina. I finished running a big plot at the end of May and I am still tired and not yet ready to contemplate another big plot. In between staff-run plots, players have to do their part.

Not to mention, in the middle of a big plot it is difficult to get any other game work done.

I can definitely respect how much time and effort this must take. I'm definitely not dedicated enough to this game to take that kind of time myself. But in a way, I think I can turn this into something that fits what I'm going for here.

But first, lets look back to the "good 'ol bad days" of the end of the world plotlines (circa '05-'09ish?). Halastar was running around building himself secret impenetrable castles and magic swords. A psionic Guild boss and nilazi hell beast had their feet/tenticles on the throat of Allanak. An elven Byn Sargeant became some kind of sorceror/psion/whatever and tried to turn the mercenary company into his private army. And that's only naming the most famous characters / examples from the period. It doesn't begin to touch all of what was happening. This was an absolutely wild period of the game. Probably too wild. A bit unrealistic at times, often exclusionary, and complete with its own set of frustrations. But god-fucking-damn was it interesting.

I don't necessarily want to see those days return, but here's the pearl in the shit-horror's shell; all of those characters were PCs. (Well, Halastar was an imm playing a PC, but even so.) Eventually it was decided that we would keep Arm 1. Many of the controversial imms of the time took off... and then began the slow (d)evolution to the game we play now. Specialty roles were nixed. I gather higher levels of oversight were imposed on Story tellers. Many clans were closed. (And now a city.) Things seem much more bureaucratic (read; regulated/congested). This led to fewer possibilities for ambitious PCs. Fewer spectacles to inspire the players. And ultimately a resigned realization that there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to aspire to. That's my take on it, anyways.

So, lets look at the Jade Cross raid again. (As much as I hate to keep bringing this back to raiders alone, I think it's a good example of what I'm proposing.) Or that group of red-cloaked raiders who lived out in the Sea of Silt and gave Salarr a hard time (I want to say this was probably '08-'09ish?) From what I could gather these raiders were played, in a limited fashion, by immortals. Why couldn't they have been played be a special PCs? Why couldn't the staff have put out a specialty role call for a short-lived pack of raiders. I know, some of them would've died prematurely. Some of them would've violated the plots MO, and maybe defected to Allanak or some shit. But would this have been so bad? How does it differ from any of the clans the staff currently oversees? If someone does something stupid, just animate the big mul boss and slap them back into place. Pretty much business as usual in a clan.

Basically what I'm asking is, why does it always have to be a tightly controlled plot run by the immortals? I feel like setting up the playerbase to do some of your dirty work and play some (gaaaaaasp!) non-traditional roles from time to time would be a great way to re-introduce some of the conflict that is clearly desired by the players, while inducing much less labor upon the storytellers to move a plot. (You'd have to build a few rooms and items, approve some applications, and read/respond to some character reports.)

Not really a question, just some food for thought.

tldr; What if the glass ceiling and lack of real possibility is what's actually making this game boring?

Quote from: Revenant on July 10, 2015, 03:32:04 PMif you're going to OOCly motivate your character to engage in these acts at every available opportunity, like some dwarf with a focus, then are you really playing you character as believably as possible? Or is it simply a machine designed to carry out the game's tagline? It's the latter I have an issue with.

And as I've explained at length it is quite easy and thematically appropriate to make a 3vdimensional character who engages in MCB because that's the type of world they live in. Could you create Ghandi? Sure. But it would go against how the world is set up.

Quote from: John on July 10, 2015, 09:58:51 PM
Could you create Ghandi? Sure. But it would go against how the world is set up.

That's black-and-white logic.  Arm is harsh, that does not mean uncommon archetypes do not present themselves effectively, and sensibly.

The game is already set up in such a way to facilitate MCB, which means naturally, you don't have to try so hard to see it manifest in the game environment.

QuoteThe game is already set up in such a way to facilitate MCB, which means naturally, you don't have to try so hard to see it manifest in the game environment.

...if we only wanted it to exist in the VNPC populace and NPC populace, that would be accurate.

Quote from: Armaddict on July 10, 2015, 11:28:24 PM

QuoteThe game is already set up in such a way to facilitate MCB, which means naturally, you don't have to try so hard to see it manifest in the game environment.

...if we only wanted it to exist in the VNPC populace and NPC populace, that would be accurate.

I'm talking about power structures, aideship, and the system of advancement in general.  All of it is designed for MCB.  I can guarantee you, if you didn't go out of your way to Murder, Corrupt, Or Betray anyone -- you'd have to eventually in the natural course of play.  But that is a debate for the philosophers.

If everyone doesn't go out of their way, then it can be quite easy to play "everyone bands together to fight against the common threat". The only reason you get any MCB is because someone decided it made sense for their character to pursue it. No-one is advocating that every single character has to try to MCB every single other character. In fact people have argued against that while advocating more in your face antagonistic roles.

Some people, on the other hand, have said they don't enjoy PvP and only want to play PvE and PvNPC and PvStaff.

Quote from: John on July 11, 2015, 01:40:25 AM
If everyone doesn't go out of their way, then it can be quite easy to play "everyone bands together to fight against the common threat". The only reason you get any MCB is because someone decided it made sense for their character to pursue it. No-one is advocating that every single character has to try to MCB every single other character. In fact people have argued against that while advocating more in your face antagonistic roles.

Some people, on the other hand, have said they don't enjoy PvP and only want to play PvE and PvNPC and PvStaff.

Yes, well, it is true, not everyone wants to participate, and I can gaurentee you, if you go for a long enough run trying not to participate, some ass-clown is going to drag your butt into it anyway, at which point you may have to MCB the fuck out of everyone that's not in your circle if you ever hope to get out of the bullshit everyone heaps on you and your allies alive. (hint: you won't, because people will keep crying about the bodies you left in your wake because people were too dumb to leave you the hell alone, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat)

I don't think you're really imagining the entire playerbase (as well as virtual population) subscribing to these entirely destructive ideas with as much zeal as some seem to advocate at once. I'm sorry, it really doesn't create a believable atmosphere, Allanak would be razed to the ground overnight, as would any non-tribal human settlement. And that's what you have to keep in mind, that for every act you do from some OOC compulsion to stay in line with some vague three word mantra, someone else was doing the exact same thing five minutes ago. These things happen on their own, simply due to the way everything is structured, there's no need to go out of your way looking for it, no need to try and one-up everyone (hey, I just stabbed someone I know nothing about! It's great RP guys! The website says so on the banner!) it's unnavoidable with the way everything is set up.

I've come from hack and slash and PvP muds almost exclusively, I mean, I enjoyed them, but most of them have zero focus on roleplay, nor do they have permadeath. I'm sorry, I don't think too much is broken here, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Follow the docs and you'll find plenty of damn good, compelling IC reasons, that don't require preconceived notions based on some banner on the website to pursue. Oh, by the way, when I read the title to the thread, I was thinking, wow, someone's asking the exact same question I have, and why? Not because of my commitment to some tagline, I'll tell you that much.

Keep it IC and stick somewhere vaguely around the docs and conflict will come to you.

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 02:07:17 AMI don't think you're really imagining the entire playerbase (as well as virtual population) subscribing to these entirely destructive ideas with as much zeal as some seem to advocate at once.

I think you are ascribing far too much zeal to me at least. I went on to explain my thoughts in three entire posts with a step by step thought process on incorporating MCB into your character.

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 02:07:17 AMAllanak would be razed to the ground overnight

Sure, if you want to take it to the most extreme interpretation possible. Can you please quote the person who is supposedly advocating for such an extreme though?

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 02:07:17 AMfor every act you do from some OOC compulsion to stay in line with some vague three word mantra

Yeah, I'm going to call bullshit on this. Every single character is creted from OOC motivations. People have jumped onto the idea of the phrase "pursuing MCB like a dwarf pursuing their focus" but it's actually a misinterpretation of what I was saying. That was fine initially, but since that line was used I have expounded on my position at great length and yet people are continuing to use that soundbite. So I'm now calling bullshit. If you create a rutheless character that will murder to get ahead, then you're motivated by an OOC desire when you create that character. If you play a corruptible character that is happy to do pretty much anything for the right price, you then you're motivated by an OOC desire when you create that character. If you will play someone who will betray their own mother for the right price, then you're motivated by an OOC desire when you create that character. If you play someone that tries to skate on by and never rocks the boat or does or says anything controversial, thn you're motivated by an OOC desire when you create that character. Singling out someone as being motivated by an OOC desire when you ignore we are all motivated by OOC desires is bullshit.

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 02:07:17 AMno need to try and one-up everyone (hey, I just stabbed someone I know nothing about! It's great RP guys! The website says so on the banner!)

Please quote the person advocating that people do this. Because I must have missed them when trying to discuss the topic at hand. It certainly can't be me, after all I specifically called for judicious use of PKing where most appropriate (PK is often cited as one of the biggest plot killers and can set back plots months if not kill them before they get off the ground).

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 02:07:17 AMI don't think too much is broken here, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Follow the docs and you'll find plenty of damn good, compelling IC reasons, that don't require preconceived notions based on some banner on the website to pursue.

I do stick to the docs and the themes of the game. I expect everyone who plays to do that or to have an unusual character with compelling reasons as to why they don't. You don't see me trying to couch people's preferences or ideas in the most extreme way possible so I can then deride those opinions.

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 02:07:17 AMKeep it IC and stick somewhere vaguely around the docs and conflict will come to you.

I can create an IC character that tries to not make waves or do anything controversial and works hard and stays within the boundaries of the social structures and get ahead quite a bit. Or I can make a character that's interesting, has a chance at being memorable and affect other character's lives. I know which one I go for. I don't see why people are advocating making boring characters (see! I was able to couch what you say in the most extreme possible way as well! But this surely contributes to the conversation in a way that is meaningful and positive, right? right?)

Quote from: John on July 11, 2015, 04:46:28 AM
Every single character is created from OOC motivations. ... If you will play someone who will betray their own mother for the right price, then you're motivated by an OOC desire when you create that character. If you play someone that tries to skate on by and never rocks the boat or does or says anything controversial, than you're motivated by an OOC desire when you create that character. Singling out someone as being motivated by an OOC desire when you ignore we are all motivated by OOC desires is bullshit.

If this thread were a book, this would be the jacket.

One of my favorite anecdotes is from way back when Delerak was running around senselessly PKing everything that moved. (We don't need a guy like that around, but I wouldn't mind a few more players with a small cut of that same cloth sewn into their pockets.) Realizing they couldn't actually ban him or get him to stop, a cunning staff member simply gave him the option of playing gith chief. In a way it was kind of like "rewarding" bad behavior, but it took a negative OOC motivation and turned it into something that fit well within the game world.

Look, John, when I come up with a character concept, I never, ever try to predict where they'll end up, because they are, without fail, always thrown off course by unforseen events and interactions. They're swayed, corrupted, and in turn they corrupt, but this is a natural development and nothing I really have to think about doing. Eventually, among the ties they've made, someone breaks ranks, because it's what's right for their character, and so, my character is betrayed, and learns that a timely betrayal can negate a shitstorm down the road, and so incorporates this tool into their arsenal, though tends to use it when necessary. Friends and loved ones are murdered, and so murder becomes another necessary tool in the kit, even if it was never a part of the character concept.

My concern is, you need to consider that not all the people reading this thread are veterans to the game, much less to RP, and without a well and clear worded explanation, and just people saying MCB, then you really send the wrong message and set the wrong example, and when a mob of twink-killer newbs bubbles up and eventually some of them grow strong enough to do some damage, with some mistaken concept that they should pursue these things at every available opportunity, yes, you get what you put into discussions like these. It's like this with many over-simplified concepts posted to the GDB. You seem to be interpreting my words as some sort of personal attack on your playstyle, which, I know fuck-all about, and is quite possibly excellent and inspiring. Really, it's more a nitpicking of your wording and how it could be misleading to others who take it as a guideline for playing the game, which, isn't meant to be personal in the slightest.

EDIT: Also, no, I don't want an overwhelming bunch of boring characters running around, although I suppose they have their place in the world. I would rather have interesting, inspiring characters with flaws, potentially dangerous characters, but I would like that tempered with a certain degree of respect for other players and their plots. I've seen not so exciting characters that embrace MCB at every available opportunity. Destructive-boring has got to be my least favorite alignment, but that's just personal preference I suppose. Creative-interesting tend to run into their own sets of problems, but they happen to be my favorite. Suppose destructive-interesting is pretty cool, as long as not taken to extremes.

Even if everyone bands together, someone has to be it. Otherwise there's nothing to band together against. We all need to take a turn being it.

Granted we can make staff be it every time, but then we're relying on staff to make all our fun. That takes all the power out of our hands and it becomes a pretty big job for them. What if they don't have time? What if there's a staff turnover? What if etc.

Also it means that we give them all the fun.

Quote from: Barzalene on July 11, 2015, 12:56:08 PM
Even if everyone bands together, someone has to be it. Otherwise there's nothing to band together against. We all need to take a turn being it.

Yeah, well, I tire of being "it" sometimes. Someone else take that ball and run with it, please.

I'm on it.

Mwahahaha! Time for my sudden yet inevitable betrayal!
PHASE ONE: COMPLETE
INITIATE HEEL TURN
GOAL: MURDER

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 12:37:29 PMReally, it's more a nitpicking of your wording

Wow, what a meaningful contribution to the thread. Rather than nitpick you could have said this upfront. Instead you chose to interpret my post in the most extreme manner possible and then nitpick that interpretation.

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 12:37:29 PM
Look, John, when I come up with a character concept, I never, ever try to predict where they'll end up

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 12:37:29 PMwithout a well and clear worded explanation, and just people saying MCB,

This indicates you either didn't read my follow up post or are ignoring it. So here it is again:

Quote from: John on July 07, 2015, 11:37:00 PM
Just to beat this dead horse some more into the ground, here is: John's Guide to Creating Sustainable Meaningful Conflict

I'm thinking people might be misunderstanding me when I say 90% of the playerbase should be striving towards murder, corruption and betrayal and the conflict that surrounds these themes. So here's my thoughts laid out on how achieving these conflict makes for a more enjoyable game. Borrowed shamelessly from Vanth's Guide to Noble PCs.

Step 1: Make friends

When you start out whatever you do, don't make waves. You have no clout, you don't (necessarily) know the lay of the land and you need to prove yourself. Murder, Corruption and Betrayal can come later. To start with you need to become useful to the powers that be.

If you don't wait and do murder and betray everybody you meet, you'll likely be doing it solo and it will become an isolating and boring role. You'll also inevitably be killed. While the only rule in Armageddon is that everyone dies, you want yours to be an achievement, not a minor footnote that goes unremarked.

So making friends, as counterproductive as it might sound, is the key to creating sustainable meaningful conflict. Don't listen to those who tell you that you need to hide and grind your skills up and then be a badass. Impatience will set in and you'll almost always do somethig stupid. Make friends who will be able to back you up in the event that someone wants revenge.

Don't make too many friends though. Who your friendly with will (ideally) shut out who you can be friends with and will (hopefully) cause you to inherit your friends' enemies.

Step 2: Get powerful allies

Everybody wants something. It might not be coin, in fact with how easy coin is to earn it will often not be coin. But they will want something. Whether it's information, items, someone dead, someone blocked from performing a task, a f-buddy, etc. Find out what that something is that a powerful person wants. And then give it to them.

The more powerful the person, the more difficult it might be to get them what they want. Even learning what it is they want can be difficult. But that's where your friends come into the picture. They can help you learn what it is the person wants. It might be through betrayal, it could be through corruption. It could (rarely) be through murder. Or it could simply be given to you. Whatever that thing is though, your friends will hopefully help you learn it. If you can't, then choose someone less powerful and learn what they want. Make them a friend or an ally and then use them to gain a more powerful ally.

Your friends can also help you get whatever it is that the powerful person wants. If you don't have the resources or skill to get it yourself, enlist the aid of others. This will possibly require you to do things for them in return, etc, etc until eventually you have that thing you wanted. You can then present that thing to the powerful figure. This will establish you as someone that is useful and worth having around. The more you do for this powerful figure, the more they will assist you when someone comes after you.

Step 3: Set Goals and Desires

By this stage your character will be an established figure in the game. They're known as someone who gets shit done. On an OOC level players will want to play with you because they know you'll find interesting things for them to do and that you'll make the game more enjoyable. On an IC level working with you comes with benefits (either tangible or intangible rewards). It is now time for you to decide what you want in life.

You might have had an initial idea when you wrote your character's background. Through play you might have seen things that you decided you want. Now is the time to definitively set those goals and desires of what you want. A good desire or goal will be one that helps put you at odds with other players.

Some examples include:
* Create a clan that lasts longer than your character.
* Gain a powerful position in an established clan.
* Have nice things.
* Gain the ability to slack off and not have to work very hard.

Step 4: Identify Potential Obstacles

These aren't people who WILL stop you, these are people who COULD try to to stop you. Let's face it, you can't always trust other players to live up to the themes of the game. Some players are new, others just have no interest in that aspect of the game. Others are simply so exhausted from their recent efforts that they don't have the energy to engage in a heavy amount of MCB. So you may need to initiate it or inspire them yourself. That's okay. Creating your own enemies will make it easier for you sustainable and meaningful conflict to be created in the future. Other players will also see how much fun there is in doing it and become inspired themselves.

There'll also be non-PC obstacles as well. Make sure you identify those as they'll be important to give your character something to do other than "GWRAR! More PKz!!!!!1111"

Step 5: Deal with the potential obstacles

It doesn't matter if they're true obstacles or not. If they aren't an obstacle, they could one day gain enough care-factor to become one. They could also be incentivised by your true enemies to become a problem. So be proactive and deal with them.

However you can't just murder them all at once. You'll quickly become too great of a cost to your allies to keep you around. They'll betray you and abandon you to distance simply because the cost/benefit analysis comes up short in your favour. So you need to be subtle and you need to be patient. This is where non-PC obstacles are important because you can attack at 3 or 4 obstacles and only have 1 or 2 of them be actual PCs.

How do you deal with PC obstacles? Here is where variety is truly the spice of life. Using a one-size fits all approach will get monotonous and boring for all involved. So while there's definitely murder, if they're in an established clan they'll simply be replaced by someone else. If the clan learns that you were responsible for the original murder you may become a target for the replacement clannie.

Instead you can:
* Make them a friend or an ally: Find out how to make yourself useful to them so they stop being an obstacle and instead become an ally. If they're powerful, this can be of great benefit to you. You can also always betray them later once they stop being useful.
* Discredit them: Plant false rumours about what they're doing. Assassinate people and make it look like the obstacle was the responsible party. Get them thrown out of their clan or make their allies turn on them.
* Distract them: Get them chasing off something else you don't care about while you enact your plans. By the time they finish chasing the distraction you should have maneuvered yourself into a position where they can no longer stop you. If not, plan successive distractions or use a different method.
* Blackmail them: Find out a dirty little secret they have and blackmail them. So long as you don't make your demands disproportionate to the blackmail you have they might not even plot to kill you.

Step 6: Achieve your goals

This is where you've successfully dealt with all potential obstacles and have now gained what you set out to achieve.

Step 7: Set new goals

Go back to Step 3 and set new goals. You can continue to cycle through Steps 3-6 indefinitely, creating plenty of conflict and enjoyment along the way. Regardless of what staff are doing, you'll be able to make things exciting and fun for the playerbase at large. Even if your only goal is "Hold on to what I have" that is still a goal that can create plenty of conflict. Because eventually someone will want what you have and start plotting against you.

----
This is what I mean by player conflict should be the main driver of the game and that everyone should strive for murder, betrayal and corruption every day. It doesn't need to be achieved every day, but your activities should have that end goal in mind.

Player conflict doesn't have to be "Total Allanak Drama" all the time. Nor do you need to create a character with the IC goal of "murderize, betray and corrupt all the poeplezzzz!" Creating three dimensional characters while keeping in mind the virtual world and the themes of the game should be all that's needed to create plenty of PvP.

You'll also notice that PK is not the main driver of this, which I realise is at odds with the initial post in this thread. Murder is definitely an important tool in the "Let's enjoy the game" toolbox. But it's only one of many and should be used as appropriate.

Of course, following this model you'll get plenty of co-operation. Co-operation is good and needed. But just as Vanth's Guide to Nobles mentions, thinking of someone as "always 100% an ally" reduces your power and makes you subserviant to them. There might be the rare individual with whom you think of in this manner. But they should be few and far between. Allies should always be on a "for now" basis.

So what's different between what we have now and using the above method? Not very much. I always assume that people who are being friendly are either in Step 1-2. New characters will definitely be in the Step 1-2 phase and so it will look exactly like what we currently have. But the longer lived characters should definitely be in the Step 3-6 phase. You might be all smiles and giggles in public and totally plotting against people in private. And that's great. But there comes a time when thought needs to turn into action.

To enable more conflict, as a playerbase when we find out "So-and-So just murdered Such and Such" we shouldn't automatically go "Lets team up against Such-and-Such." There should definitely be room for "Such-and-Such is someone who can get shit done. Could I use that to achieve my goals?"

If this isn't well worded and/or then please provide critical feedback rather than simply negative feedback or hit picky feedback.

No, no, actually reading through that, instead of skimming it like a douche, I actually agree. Sorry I looked at it and thought tl;dr before. That's exactly how I think it should be done.

EDIT: I especially like how it encourages other options being the go-to for problems instead of murder. Granted, it will be called for at times, but, it's not the optimal solution in numerous cases.

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 10:51:55 PMNo, no, actually reading through that

No worries. I agree it was a wall of text, although I didn't know how to get it through any clearer than that. I'm glad you liked it.

Quote from: John on July 11, 2015, 11:38:39 PM

Quote from: Revenant on July 11, 2015, 10:51:55 PMNo, no, actually reading through that

No worries. I agree it was a wall of text, although I didn't know how to get it through any clearer than that. I'm glad you liked it.

Yeah, real sorry, again, just, there's been so many posts to this thread that, I did skim some bits. And thanks for being understanding. Thanks for bringing it to my attention that I skipped over a damn good bit of advice, even if some was borrowed. Granted, there will always be language that can be twisted or skewed, but, those were pretty good guidelines. I think, the only thing I would add, would be aknowledging the virtual environment, as I've had that crack down on me, hard, before, didn't matter how well connected my elf was, in the grand scheme of things, I shouldn't have overestimated their standing among the powerful PC population as expanding anywhere beyond that. I'm being intentionally vague, even if it has been more than a year.

And when IAmJacks saw John and Revenant's capacity for love, forgiveness, and tolerance, his heart grew three sizes and he realized that he did not, in fact, want to kill all of them.

Just kidding! He still does!

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 12, 2015, 10:49:09 AM
And when IAmJacks saw John and Revenant's capacity for love, forgiveness, and tolerance, his heart grew three sizes and he realized that he did not, in fact, want to kill all of them.

Just kidding! He still does!

I've always been a fan of: "I like you. I think I'll kill you last."

Group hug! (draw knife sheath)

https://youtu.be/N1qroY4SQLw

Yeah, I seriously wish there were more super-powered crazy motherfuckers running around fucking shit up.
No sarcasm. I promise.
I want more super-powered crazy motherfuckers running around fucking shit up.
Let's have the [REDACTED] attack the city. Or better yet, let loose a [REDACTED].
Hell, bring back the [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]. To my knowledge, that thing was killed at least three times, now, and each time was awesome.
Or even bring back the [REDACTED]! Those fuckers could be a whole Mad Max thing going on, riding a herd of Erdlu in a stampede around Allanak.

Let me templar and I will kill

Quote from: Case on July 13, 2015, 06:07:47 PM
Let me templar and I will kill

Bah. That's no challenge.

Killing a templar, on the other hand...

Templars are an important source of natural selection among PCs. Admittedly, there's a fine line between "enforcing the documented tyranny of the State" and "drive people from the city because you kill too capriciously."

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 13, 2015, 06:22:05 PM

Quote from: Case on July 13, 2015, 06:07:47 PM
Let me templar and I will kill

Bah. That's no challenge.

Killing a templar, on the other hand...

Yeah I do that too

Callin' bullshiiiiit!

There was a really great noble running around a year or two ago who was just an absolute cock to everybody. It was glorious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxJrjV4PNXA


let's all burn it down-- err, be evil

I don't see a difference between a raider vs grebber (where the raider has better equipment and obviously wins the fight before it even gets started) and a town mob vs aforementioned raider (where all the advantages suddenly swing to the town mob).

The only satisfying pks are the personal ones where you know your target and it takes time to set up. Better yet, let them know it is coming.

If you want to add random evil to the game..let the ONE ring be found in the ruins of Steinal.
The ring that you put on and suddenly your stats are AI and you have access to all magics.
Even the lowliest grebber could rise to rule a city state with the one ring.
Death would follow rumors.
Who wouldn't lust after it? Who wouldn't try to steal it? Who wouldn't kill for it?
Unfortunately, it does age you 20 years for every year passed but that's the price of power. You can't just sit on it. You have to use it quick.

Let the lesser known rings be discovered as well. Maybe they can max out a skill for you. Now that helpless looking grebber slips on his magic ring and your easy target is suddenly a blademaster. Send that bottom-feeding raider scurrying back into the sands. Although, lesser rings would still be worth killing over.

Bah, you goody two shoes would just band together and toss the rings in the volcano.

Quote from: burble on July 14, 2015, 12:28:45 PM
I don't see a difference between a raider vs grebber (where the raider has better equipment and obviously wins the fight before it even gets started) and a town mob vs aforementioned raider (where all the advantages suddenly swing to the town mob).

The only satisfying pks are the personal ones where you know your target and it takes time to set up. Better yet, let them know it is coming.

If you want to add random evil to the game..let the ONE ring be found in the ruins of Steinal.
The ring that you put on and suddenly your stats are AI and you have access to all magics.
Even the lowliest grebber could rise to rule a city state with the one ring.
Death would follow rumors.
Who wouldn't lust after it? Who wouldn't try to steal it? Who wouldn't kill for it?
Unfortunately, it does age you 20 years for every year passed but that's the price of power. You can't just sit on it. You have to use it quick.

Let the lesser known rings be discovered as well. Maybe they can max out a skill for you. Now that helpless looking grebber slips on his magic ring and your easy target is suddenly a blademaster. Send that bottom-feeding raider scurrying back into the sands. Although, lesser rings would still be worth killing over.

Bah, you goody two shoes would just band together and toss the rings in the volcano.

A templar would eventually get it, and it'll end up in the Indiana Jones-esque warehouse, never to be seen again. Like other such things.

Also, what you basically described was an old-school sorcerer, but without the rapid aging.

Precioussssssssss

Quote from: Talia on July 07, 2015, 12:16:17 AM
I'd say we have anywhere between 5 and 10 PKs per week on a regular basis. Looks like in the 5 to 7 range over the past week, based on runlogs and PK reports. Is that not enough? That's around 2 to 4% of PCs dying to other PCs per week; or around 10% per RL month on the conservative side of the estimate.

Sorry, I've been slacking lately. My next PC...oh, you wait and see... <hands rubbing>

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 13, 2015, 10:52:24 PM
Callin' bullshiiiiit!

There was a really great noble running around a year or two ago who was just an absolute cock to everybody. It was glorious.

Despite having no idea if this was me or not I'll still say, "you're welcome". So, you're welcome.

Quote from: The Lonely Hunter on July 14, 2015, 06:46:53 PM

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 13, 2015, 10:52:24 PM
There was a really great noble running around a year or two ago who was just an absolute cock to everybody. It was glorious.

Despite having no idea if this was me or not I'll still say, "you're welcome". So, you're welcome.

If you received a scathingly-loving (that's a thing in Arm) kudos, then it was probably you. ;)

I'll be a little more clear.
The boots you start with will most likely outlive your character. Anyone who kills for boots either has a shoe fetish or is a griefer.

I tried doing the assassin/rinth thing. Everybody says it is tough to survive there, right? Found a dead pc with over a large on him. Kept finding dead npcs/pcs all over the place. My pc couldn't carry all the sid he found! So what was the motivation for killing? Why steal when you have so much you can barely walk? There is no material reason to fight. Couple that with no elves to play with and not really understanding sneaky skills..I just stored.

If you want to motivate more killing/conflict - give a material reason to kill. Make unique items, powerful items, that all pcs have access to. Make them scary enough so that even those in high places would worry if they fell in the wrong hands. Even if a Templar/noble tried to stow it away - make sure a thief would be able to find it. Each class could have an ultimate weapon - the bow of doom gets a 3 room range and hits for 1/2 of the target's HP and doesn't care about strength as long as you're class ranger. Who wouldn't band together to try to take that from someone? It's just talking points. I'm sure most of you could think of more balanced items for the gameworld.

The world would be a lot less safe if you couldn't pigeon-hole someone's class, level and abilities just by looking at them or being around them a game day.

I suggest unique items because builders could do that and it would shake up the rather static power structure. Maybe a code solution would be to make items in corpses or dug up out of the ground disappear much quicker - 1 game hour and everything is gone but the corpse container. Then you could only loot what you actually kill or forage yourself.

Blow the 'sid on spice.

Bonus: now you have a reason to keep mugging people.

1. Get skillz.

2. Raid.

3. Die young and quick when everyone gives your exact sdesc through your facewrap/hood/cloak to everyone.

??? Profit happens somewhere in there, briefly.

Quote from: Synthesis on July 15, 2015, 10:24:25 AM
Blow the 'sid on spice.

Gets old fast as a character concept.

Quote from: Eyeball on July 19, 2015, 03:33:24 AM

Quote from: Synthesis on July 15, 2015, 10:24:25 AM
Blow the 'sid on spice.

Gets old fast as a character concept.

First character I ever made didn't drink alcohol or do spice, and was a Bynner.
Ended up being filthy rich.

Now, as a preface to the statement that follows, I would guess I've PK'd less in my time played then 90% of people who have been around for say, 2 or more years.  But really, I plan to pk people all the time when I'm playing.  Or get told to by my masters before they vanish.  And every time I'm in PvP I get the shakes.

What if characters didn't have to be antagonists/white knights and instead were just people with agendas and had humanesque behaviors that caused them to murder to achieve them?  What happens to most total aggro people in real life, throughout history?  Don't bandits typically get utterly routed or bought out by the land holders in feudal times?  If you roll up Stabby McGee, don't be surprised if most of the world doesn't like the idea of an unchecked homicidal maniac.

That all being said, murder is indeed part of the trifecta. 

18 days after thread creation:

Ya'll still a bunch of soft ass bishes.

Too busy skilling up to PK.

Better skill up faster, Badskeellz, because I'm skilling up to kill you.

Teehee

Quote from: Revenant on July 24, 2015, 10:40:07 AM
Better skill up faster, Badskeellz, because I'm skilling up to kill you.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 23, 2015, 02:05:58 PM
Too busy skilling up to PK.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Punishment_sisyph.jpg)

See, this just supports my argument that if it was easier to raise combat skills we'd be much more prone to using them on each other.

Less posting more plotting. Turn to.

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 10, 2015, 09:25:26 PM
tldr; What if the glass ceiling and lack of real possibility is what's actually making this game boring?

It's too late, IAmJacksOpinion. Most of the people who want a dynamic environment have left now. Those still here seem to be content with how things are (big SOCIAL and small KILLING), which is why you'll find nothing but resistance on the GDB.

Quote from: Eyeball on July 24, 2015, 02:59:18 PM

Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on July 10, 2015, 09:25:26 PM
tldr; What if the glass ceiling and lack of real possibility is what's actually making this game boring?

It's too late, IAmJacksOpinion. Most of the people who want a dynamic environment have left now. Those still here seem to be content with how things are (big SOCIAL and small KILLING), which is why you'll find nothing but resistance on the GDB.

Maybe I was just never part of the "killing groups", but it seems to me like just as much killing goes on now as it always has.

Maybe the ratio of number of PVP murders to total number of players active has dropped since our playbase has gotten bigger. I could see that. But as for raw numbers of PK's happening regularly that I personally know about...it seems like business as usual to me.

Armageddon has never been a game where I've seen people slaughtering each other wholesale outside of wars and RPT's. Usually you hear about one or two here or there a week, and it keeps those deaths interesting.

I don't really want a game where I'm hearing about a new murder twice a RL day. It would make murder and death yawn worthy for me instead of an interesting story.

If life was any more expendable than it was already, we should rename the game to Thunderdome, and make it a strictly PK mud.  I'd still play, sometimes.

Quote from: Barzalene on July 24, 2015, 02:01:37 PM
Less posting more plotting. Turn to.

I am plotting as hard as I can damnit.

I think the lack of satisfaction people in IAmJacksOpinion's camp feel comes from Die Hard Syndrome.

Some people like to role play for the social interactions and intrigue where murder is the climax of a story line. I think for people like these Armageddon as it currently stands is generally a fun game, but it can be disappointing when crucial people in the story get carru'd randomly and you're left with no climax for your plot.

But for other people, they enjoy the game when it's more like a Die Hard movie. Action action action death and destruction all the time with awesome explosions wherein their characters are beaten down to a bloody pulp ... ... Armageddon can do that for them too no problem except for one minor snag. These kinds of players still want to come out on top when it's all said and done. Or at the very least they want their death to be a glorious epic ballad the likes of which the bards will sing about for ages to come.

Players who want this experience can get it really well in a table top game where the storyteller has complete control over the world, the players are not fighting against each other generally speaking, and they are the focal point around which the world is revolving. In that setting you can have countless close calls and "got by on the skin of your teeth" moments.

Armageddon isn't good at delivering that kind of experience. It can do the action, death, and destruction no problem, but like the universe ... it is entirely indifferent towards anyone's individual PC. If you get into the thick of the shit ... you are very likely to die. Quickly. And without ceremony. No matter what your class is, no matter how many days played you are. How well you trained your skills. Or what kind of sweet elite gear you have.

So when people complain that Armageddon doesn't have enough death and conflict while at the same time, complaining out the other side of their mouth that any conflict that gets started is quickly squashed with an uber vengeance ... I suspect that they're the above type of player, and that's what's rooted at the core of their disappointment with both ends of the spectrum Armageddon provides.

I'm not saying they're bad players, I count myself among the number of people with Die Hard Syndrome. They, we ... just have a different taste for what we like in an RPG, and Armageddon isn't really tailored to cater to it.

Well said, musashi.  I would like to think most of us live in a middle ground between those two spectrums.  One thing I wanna disagree on is the point of Armageddon not having as many close calls.  Comparative to a table-top setting, it probably doesn't, but most characters (ok, not tavern sitters, which are less common as a trope since the fall of Tuluk, maybe?) who have lived longer than a few weeks have probably already experienced a 'close moment', if not an actual death, and that's why I think the balance is a perception issue of where one is playing.

Or an outcry for PC gith or something.

I see what you're saying Kismetic. I think though, that most of the close calls you are alluding to tend to be PvE situations.

I have had countless close calls fighting a mob in the desert that almost killed me but I managed to get away from just in the nick of time.

I was speaking more to when player vs player conflict is the dynamic going on, or an epic RPT like mass extinction event - within the context of a plot. I think a close call with a carru that has no vested interest in tracking down and murdering you once you flee with 5 hit points left is a lot more common than getting away from a troop of Bynners who are getting the same rush you are getting, except for them the win condition is actually catching and killing you.

In those grander situations, Armageddon is very unforgiving, and very quick.

To elaborate a little bit:

Even in situations where the staff might be animating something specifically for you and your group ... it's very difficult to achieve that Die Hard experience because the line between too easy and overkill is hair thin. I suspect this is why there are so many stories about entire Byn troops being slaughtered by a spam fest of mantis or tarantulas ... I honestly don't think it's because the staff wanted to twink kill everyone so they just typed in whatever command they have to load monsters and held their finger down on the enter button till the beeps stopped ...

I think it was much more likely a case of them thinking things were going a bit too easy so maybe just ... just one more spider ... ... ... shit.  :-\

In a table top things move at the speed of a rolled die so it's a lot easier to get close to that thin line without accidentally hopping over it. In Armageddon things move at computer processing speeds ...

Well, yeah, PVE is more commonly the close call, and that bears weight, but those close calls when someone tries to kill you, and you get away, or vice versa ...  Those may be rarer, but they're a rush.

That said, whenever I've had the desire and ability to kill someone without contest, enacting that has never been difficult.  I don't know if that translates to table-top, by comparison, either, because sometimes, a body has to die.

Quote from: musashi on July 24, 2015, 07:36:48 PM
I suspect this is why there are so many stories about entire Byn troops being slaughtered by a spam fest of mantis or tarantulas ... I honestly don't think it's because the staff wanted to twink kill everyone so they just typed in whatever command they have to load monsters and held their finger down on the enter button till the beeps stopped ...

I got rezzed the one and only time because staff typoed the number of creatures to spawn, and they got every one of us (maybe twelve people) back in the game within the hour.  I know staff can be fair, and times when a party just gets obliterated, I want to trust that the response was proportionate, and going back to that tabletop analogy I do like, sometimes you spend the end of the night marking and erasing new character sheets.

On another note, welcome back.  You have always been a fun person to chat/debate/go-to-philisophical-war with.

Quote from: musashi on July 24, 2015, 07:36:48 PM

In a table top things move at the speed of a rolled die so it's a lot easier to get close to that thin line without accidentally hopping over it. In Armageddon things move at computer processing speeds ...

I would love it if combat took 10x longer (literally) but was more deadly.  And by longer, I mean, long delays between attacks.  It would allow for combat with 5-6 other players to be intelligible rather than so much spam it's impossible to see what's actually going on.

I totally agree. It's a big rush.

I just think the ratio of getting that rush vs getting a wtf moment where you're staring at the mantis head on your screen and have to go back through the buffer just to see what the hell happened ... leans heavily towards the latter.

Hence the complaining on the GDB.

Where as in table top games, it leans much more heavily towards the former.

You know what?  I was thinking about this the other day when I killed some guy.  That old idea of the timed final emote before mantishead.  So much closure, so less whining.

Quote from: Kismetic on July 24, 2015, 07:39:51 PM
and going back to that tabletop analogy I do like, sometimes you spend the end of the night marking and erasing new character sheets.

On another note, welcome back.  You have always been a fun person to chat/debate/go-to-philisophical-war with.

You do for sure. I'm not saying these things don't happen in table top games ... or that their inverse doesn't happen in Armageddon. I'm just saying that the frequency at which they happen are very different.

And thanks.

Quote from: Kismetic on July 24, 2015, 07:36:59 PM
That said, whenever I've had the desire and ability to kill someone without contest, enacting that has never been difficult.  I don't know if that translates to table-top, by comparison, either, because sometimes, a body has to die.

Yeah. I've experienced conflict in Armageddon from a plethora of angles. Not every angle yet I'm sure but I've:

• been the victim in the jail cell getting a slow drawn out death from the powers that be.
• been the powers that be giving the slow drawn out death to the victim in the jail cell.
• been the poor sod getting jumped in the middle of the desert.
• been the guy jumping the poor sod in the middle of the desert.
• been the deviant getting hunted down by a war band.
• been a part of the war band hunting down the deviant.
• been the deviant who obliterated the war band that was trying to hunt him down.
• been in large mass battles with death flying around like cats in a tornado.
• been the unstoppable engine of death one hitting bahamets and wading through mantis hives and gith packs.

Out of all the situations I've been through, the deaths and conflict that were most enjoyable have been the slow jail cell variety because at least you have a chance to process what's going on.

In all of the others, whether I come out of it as the slain or the victor ... I'm always left with that wet blanket feeling of: Wow ... that escalated quickly. Having an action sequence that is stretched out long enough to really build up that gritty sense of tension and excitement that you find in table top ... I just haven't seen it in Armageddon, and I think the reason lies in how quickly the code resolves conflict, and I don't know that it's something that can be changed, or should be changed even. Arm is just different like that.

Quote from: wizturbo on July 24, 2015, 07:40:30 PM
I would love it if combat took 10x longer (literally) but was more deadly.  And by longer, I mean, long delays between attacks.  It would allow for combat with 5-6 other players to be intelligible rather than so much spam it's impossible to see what's actually going on.

Yeah. The most nerve racking combat I have ever been in was always 1 on 1. The combat engine of Armageddon seems to delivery the nail biting experience best in 1 on 1. It's just slow enough to read and process what's happening. Get some emoting in, some witty banter, etc.

The more people you involve in the conflict though, the more the game quickly spams up and turns into a landslide of text on your screen that you're desperately trying to ignore and just focus on your HP so you know when you spam flee. At least in my experience.

I said this once in another thread, maybe even this one, that Arm requires a degree of efficiency.  I don't want to wait longer for a coded action than it takes me to fire off an emote from the hip.  Combat could be about ...   10-20% slower, and I'm all for it.  And deathmotes.

Yeah. I sympathize with the sentiment ... but I honestly don't have any good suggestions for what could be done to fix it.

Making combat slower would probably make 1 on 1 combat tedious in the extreme, and I reckon a lot of combat in this game both PvP and PvE ends up being 1 on 1 whether it's sparring in a clan compound or hunter vs scrab so ... I'm honestly not on board with making combat slower because I think it would hurt more than help.

Death emotes also sound nice at first glance to me but when I try to envision how that would look and play out in a larger battle where people are dying all the time, often with no idea what happened leading up to their death until after they re-read the logs ... it seems like it would be clunky and awkward.

It seems to me that any meaningful solutions would need to be tailored towards the type of event in question. Code changes that only affect mass combat but not 1 one 1 combat for example ... but I'm not a coder, and I have no idea how feasible such a solution would be.

So basically ... I've just resigned myself to Armageddon giving a different experience than a table top RPG does, and I've tried to enjoy a different style of play than the Die Hard style I normally par take in.

... ... but I still voted for bitch bring it on in the poll.  ;)

Old habits die hard.

It's a challenge to create properly balanced 'encounters' in 'PvE' situations because once you start dealing with large numbers of PCs, and/or very skilled PCs, there is a very, very fine line between an encounter that the PCs demolish in five seconds, and an encounter that results in a bunch of PK reports.

I think I remember seeing somewhere that in a scenario where staff accidentally kill a player, there's like five PK reports in some form or another following it, that -someone- has to wade through. I can imagine the headache. I think some staff members have really perfected that balance you speak of though, Mord.

Quote from: Mordiggian on July 24, 2015, 10:35:31 PM
It's a challenge to create properly balanced 'encounters' in 'PvE' situations because once you start dealing with large numbers of PCs, and/or very skilled PCs, there is a very, very fine line between an encounter that the PCs demolish in five seconds, and an encounter that results in a bunch of PK reports.

I think that this is more an issue of how targets are chosen than anything else. If you knew the first npc would attack the first pc, and so on, that alone would change group combat.

Quote from: musashi on July 24, 2015, 08:19:53 PM
... ... but I still voted for bitch bring it on in the poll.  ;)

Old habits die hard.

Yeah, most of us did.  ;D

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on July 25, 2015, 08:01:19 PM

Quote from: Mordiggian on July 24, 2015, 10:35:31 PM
It's a challenge to create properly balanced 'encounters' in 'PvE' situations because once you start dealing with large numbers of PCs, and/or very skilled PCs, there is a very, very fine line between an encounter that the PCs demolish in five seconds, and an encounter that results in a bunch of PK reports.

I think that this is more an issue of how targets are chosen than anything else. If you knew the first npc would attack the first pc, and so on, that alone would change group combat.

Nah, I can't search for the post right now but I think it was Talia that explained targeting in another thread. Usually the NPCs are launched at you with no specific target, but if we wanted to do something like make sure the templar leading the charge is attacked first, it's entirely doable.

The encounter balance issue is more a side effect of the way the game handles combat, but fortunately there are some super creative people on staff who have come up with some awesome (sinister?) solutions.

Glad to know that there are solutions to such an issue, and that they apparently get used well. Excellent.

Come to think of it, I should have posted my signature as my only reply to this thread.

It was a legit paste from my client.  :P I kill harder than j00

Quote from: Majikal on July 27, 2015, 08:36:45 PM
Come to think of it, I should have posted my signature as my only reply to this thread.

It was a legit paste from my client.  :P I kill harder than j00

Your signature is my favorite thing on this forum.

Quote from: musashi on July 24, 2015, 07:05:27 PM
But for other people, they enjoy the game when it's more like a Die Hard movie. Action action action death and destruction all the time with awesome explosions wherein their characters are beaten down to a bloody pulp ... ... Armageddon can do that for them too no problem except for one minor snag. These kinds of players still want to come out on top when it's all said and done. Or at the very least they want their death to be a glorious epic ballad the likes of which the bards will sing about for ages to come.

Players who want this experience can get it really well in a table top game where the storyteller has complete control over the world, the players are not fighting against each other generally speaking, and they are the focal point around which the world is revolving. In that setting you can have countless close calls and "got by on the skin of your teeth" moments.

Armageddon isn't good at delivering that kind of experience. It can do the action, death, and destruction no problem, but like the universe ... it is entirely indifferent towards anyone's individual PC. If you get into the thick of the shit ... you are very likely to die. Quickly. And without ceremony. No matter what your class is, no matter how many days played you are. How well you trained your skills. Or what kind of sweet elite gear you have.

So when people complain that Armageddon doesn't have enough death and conflict while at the same time, complaining out the other side of their mouth that any conflict that gets started is quickly squashed with an uber vengeance ... I suspect that they're the above type of player, and that's what's rooted at the core of their disappointment with both ends of the spectrum Armageddon provides.

I get what you're saying, but IMO, it's mostly horseshit. Armageddon delivers that kind of conflict just fine. It used to anyways. Lots of games do/did. It simply requires competition and a couple antagonistic clans.

Give people something meaningful to compete over and they will happily fight over it and enjoy the conflict. Without any of the condescending need, as you articulated, to be the hero or have their ego stroked. Legitimate conflict is interesting. Conflict for the sake of conflict is less so - but that's all Arm has right now.

Take away all antagonistic clans, and all real sources of legitimate competition for territory or resources, and all you get is PCs vs NPCs, and PCs whose 'elaborate plots and dramas' that you seem so fond of, mostly come down to mudsex-related lovers quarrels, or the odd rivalry born more out of boredom than anything else.

Me? I'd rather have something as simple as fighting over the rights to a watering hole, or who gets to tax a tiny village, or the right to control the spice smuggling through the 'rinth. The Allanaki noble houses would all be much more interesting if they weren't so highly compartmentalized and had interests outside Allanak that they could expand or contest for, and it was inside the city where they were forced to play 'mostly' nice.

Instead, all you get is a bunch've mudsex and gossipy bitching, which might lead to some highly choreographed assassination in someone's apartment, or death via templar, at most.

People have to work hard in this game to come up with reasons not to follow the natural human instinct of cooperating and getting along to get along. Sadly, even though I think staff has done a great job in many respects, and are always doing better (leaving me with hope for the future), staff has not done a good job of giving player clans a compelling reason to compete with each other.

Moreover, I suspect that giving clans a compelling reason to compete with each other is not something they even care about or want to do, so it's less a poor job of it, and more just not on their agenda to begin with. How did it come to be this way, given how intensely conflicty that Arm started out as? I'm not sure.

There are no real PvP politics, as there is nothing much to gain, and nothing much to lose. Politics, such as it is, is directed towards NPCs. Or more commonly, reacting to the ruthless competition between rival NPCs while maintaining a safe distance. I think staff handles PC vs NPC and NPC vs NPC conflict quite well.

People will say 'be the change'. Well, guess what? I don't need my ego stroked. So even though I'd like conflict, I tend to feel bad about drumming up a completely arbitrary reason for destroying someone. Whereas if I have a legitimate reason (protecting my territory, or such) it's perfectly fun. And anyways, the people who advocate this 'be the change' harshness have an interesting habit of preying exclusively on the weak/newbish, rather than those who would actually be a challenge. So fuck those guys too.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 28, 2015, 03:38:08 PMAnd anyways, the people who advocate this 'be the change' harshness have an interesting habit of preying exclusively on the weak/newbish, rather than those who would actually be a challenge. So fuck those guys too.

While I'd like to point out that accusing people of having particular habits due to their opinion on a subject isn't a great way to make a point, I did enjoy your post, and I happen to agree with some of it and find it a bit unsporting to spot the guy in chargen gear and kill them, or find exclusively weaker opponents to crush the life out of. I mean, I don't understand the satisfaction in that, it's not very challenging, provided you con them into a comprimising situation (something I enjoy doing, then -not- killing them because why bother? I already know I could have if I wanted) or otherwise following them around, hidden, waiting for an opportunity (not always easy, some people spend all their time, purposefully, in public or clan areas, near soldiers, daylight hours, because yes, you COULD easily be stabbed if you're not careful), but then, why not just jump out and say (miming a stabbing motion with ~knife) Bam! You're dead!, then run off cackling as they appear frightened and confused?

I mean, it'll be good practice for when the shit really DOES hit the fan (eventually, it will), and nobody who doesn't really have it coming doesn't have to die.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 28, 2015, 03:38:08 PMI get what you're saying, but IMO, it's mostly horseshit. Armageddon delivers that kind of conflict just fine. It used to anyways. Lots of games do/did. It simply requires competition and a couple antagonistic clans.

Give people something meaningful to compete over and they will happily fight over it and enjoy the conflict. Without any of the condescending need, as you articulated, to be the hero or have their ego stroked. Legitimate conflict is interesting. Conflict for the sake of conflict is less so - but that's all Arm has right now.

...

Me? I'd rather have something as simple as fighting over the rights to a watering hole, or who gets to tax a tiny village, or the right to control the spice smuggling through the 'rinth. The Allanaki noble houses would all be much more interesting if they weren't so highly compartmentalized and had interests outside Allanak that they could expand or contest for, and it was inside the city where they were forced to play 'mostly' nice.

...

Moreover, I suspect that giving clans a compelling reason to compete with each other is not something they even care about or want to do, so it's less a poor job of it, and more just not on their agenda to begin with. How did it come to be this way, given how intensely conflicty that Arm started out as? I'm not sure.

There are no real PvP politics, as there is nothing much to gain, and nothing much to lose. Politics, such as it is, is directed towards NPCs. Or more commonly, reacting to the ruthless competition between rival NPCs while maintaining a safe distance. I think staff handles PC vs NPC and NPC vs NPC conflict quite well.

People will say 'be the change'. Well, guess what? I don't need my ego stroked. So even though I'd like conflict, I tend to feel bad about drumming up a completely arbitrary reason for destroying someone. Whereas if I have a legitimate reason (protecting my territory, or such) it's perfectly fun. And anyways, the people who advocate this 'be the change' harshness have an interesting habit of preying exclusively on the weak/newbish, rather than those who would actually be a challenge. So fuck those guys too.

All of this. Thanks for typing it out for me.

I think one of the reasons you will never/really have never seen a lot of plots that include large powers fighting over something is that there are some critical factors that have to fall into place for that to happen on the OOC front.

A) You have to have two clans with enough players in them to make a potential conflict interesting.
B) The leaders of both of those clans have to be players that staff can trust to, "Go along with the story.".
C) Those two clans have to be two clans that would actually go into a conflict with each other to begin with.

Getting all three of those things to line up perfectly so that a, "Conflict Plot", could be written up and started would be pretty hard to begin with.

You can't just app in a leader for it either, because the leader has to be someone that is actually going to lead and attract players. How many special app leaders have we all seen who really weren't interesting and nobody really wanted to play with and who finally just vanished because of it? More than I can count.

Now let's assume you have managed to get A, B, and C all lined up.

Now you have to deal with the next phase.

D) We can't have two major powers in a conflict with each other without having a pre-determined end to the conflict. These aren't tiny player on player issues that involve one or two PC's. These conflicts involve major powers/Houses/clans....the outcome can't be left up to players because it would affect too much of the game all at once.

E) So we have pre-determined the outcome of this conflict (which is pretty much the rule of thumb for every major conflict in Armageddon). Now....will the players, most importantly the leaders of these clans, go along with exactly how we want them to run this show so it pans out exactly how we have planned?

It would be a nightmare to run in my opinion, assuming you could even get A, B, and C all lined up. At the end of the day, with most major conflicts, it isn't even very interesting in my opinion. I have been in several, and usually I just feel like I'm watching it happen because I know the outcome is predetermined anyways. What the players do in the middle is just....filler...at best.

A lot of the times major conflicts leave me saying, "Yeah, I could have got the same experience from this being a history page entry.". They usually aren't fun for me personally. I want to play the game...not watch someone else play the game where I just happen to be semi-involved in the peripheral.

Basically what I am saying is that you really DO need to be the change if you want to create more harshness and more conflict. Huge wide scale conflict....you aren't going to be able to do anything but be part of someone else's predetermined prewritten story anyways. I think the true essence of "enjoyable" conflict is very much on the player to player level and doesn't need staff involvement at all. That is the sort of conflict we need and in my opinion we have a lot of that already.

Give me three or four guys who hate each other for whatever reason and want to kill each other over a war any day. One is fun and interesting to be part of. The other is mostly just watching a story someone else has written for you to enjoy. It can be nice, but I already own a lot of books. The former I can get going myself pretty much any time I want. The latter takes a huge amount of work by staff for what in my opinion is very little payoff usually (for me personally).

I'd like no PC on PC death to be accidental. I'd like you to have to type 'kill PC' again, to kill them. Mercy on doesn't do this, by the way. It simply withholds a blow that would take the remaining HP from your victim, but often times that means that the victim is still up and fighting.

This change might create a lot more long termed conflict. I for one would leave anybody I didn't consider a threat alive, and it would make mugging easier to conduct without killing the victim. Mind you, I don't want to eliminate PKs. I want a fool proof way to not kill someone, but rather,  incapacitate them.

Also, my clan has a reason for conflict, now that I think of it. Excellleeeent. Mwahaha.

Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on July 28, 2015, 05:18:53 PM
I'd like no PC on PC death to be accidental. I'd like you to have to type 'kill PC' again, to kill them. Mercy on doesn't do this, by the way. It simply withholds a blow that would take the remaining HP from your victim, but often times that means that the victim is still up and fighting.

This change might create a lot more long termed conflict. I for one would leave anybody I didn't consider a threat alive, and it would make mugging easier to conduct without killing the victim. Mind you, I don't want to eliminate PKs. I want a fool proof way to not kill someone, but rather,  incapacitate them.

Also, my clan has a reason for conflict, now that I think of it. Excellleeeent. Mwahaha.

Yup, a more hardcoded failsafe against finishing someone would be pretty sweet. I would really like this. Mercy is nice, and works sometimes, but not all of the time. Maybe that makes Mercy more realistic, but, I think we could suspend a little realism to have a failsafe that makes SURE I won't kill them...unless I really want to.

I would leave so many folks alive and have so many more interesting scenes with them when they came to, tied up, in my dungeon, with me holding my scissors.  ;D

Quote from: Desertman on July 28, 2015, 05:13:22 PM

A) You have to have two clans with enough players in them to make a potential conflict interesting.
B) The leaders of both of those clans have to be players that staff can trust to, "Go along with the story.".
C) Those two clans have to be two clans that would actually go into a conflict with each other to begin with.

I think the easiest way to do this is for staff to troll through character reports to see what player plots people are trying to get started and then simply arrange for them to be mutually exclusive.

For instance:

Player from powerful group A wants to do something that requires staff to build something or animate an NPC or what have you
Staff responds "You need exclusive posession of the wangdoodle and we'll approve this"

Player from powerful group B wants to do this other thing that also requires staff involvement
Staff responds "You need exclusive posession of the wangdoodle and we'll approve this"

This is how LARPs I've played in have been creating player conflict for decades. It doesn't always work out, mind you. Sometimes one group is totally outclassed due to factors beyond staff control, sometimes one of the players ends up timid or just doesn't show up due to OOC reasons. But the real reason this sort of setup works is the very minimal amount of investment you waste when it fails. Which means you can just keep doing it everytime players end up trying to do potentially opposing things.

Side note: This actually can get really interesting when the "wangdoodle" is a person (NPC or PC)

Quote from: Desertman on July 28, 2015, 05:21:20 PM
I would leave so many folks alive and have so many more interesting scenes with them when they came to, tied up, in my dungeon, with me holding my scissors.  ;D

Dungeon RP ...  One of my true favorites.  You really have to prove you want to live to get out of the Dungeon.

Quote from: Kismetic on July 28, 2015, 05:36:21 PM

Quote from: Desertman on July 28, 2015, 05:21:20 PM
I would leave so many folks alive and have so many more interesting scenes with them when they came to, tied up, in my dungeon, with me holding my scissors.  ;D

Dungeon RP ...  One of my true favorites.  You really have to prove you want to live to get out of the Dungeon.

say (throwing a small clay jar of bimbal salve down to the zaftig woman) It puts the lotion on it's skin or else it gets the hose again!

emote strokes his stuffed gortok pup gently, peering down into the hole.

If Buffalo Bill had a ranger buddy to help his Merchant/Con Artist there would be no need for a dungeon. Just need a sufficiently high skin skill and you can skip the lotion.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 28, 2015, 05:43:22 PM
If Buffalo Bill had a ranger buddy to help his Merchant/Con Artist there would be no need for a dungeon. Just need a sufficiently high skin skill and you can skip the lotion.

We can do this together with our next characters.

They call me Gizhat Gill.

I think I have a concept for a nilazi, now.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 28, 2015, 03:38:08 PM
I get what you're saying, but IMO, it's mostly horseshit.

My comments were in reference to players who complain about the lack of conflict, which seems to apply to you ... but when conflict happens, complain about the how unsatisfying the resolution of the conflict was. Like the folks who are upset about a five man war band rolling out to track down a lone bandit who robbed one of their friends, or the folks who are dissatisfied with the nature of massive battles, and so on. This second one does not seem to apply to you.

If I understand you correctly you don't mind the brutal and fast paced way that Armageddon deals out death, and you can come out of a plot satisfied even when your character was collateral damage in the greater story arc.

You seem more concerned with what you see as a general lack of PvP conflict in the game.

That's not really what I was talking about though. It doesn't seem like you fall into the player group I was referencing. I think we're talking about different topics.

Quote from: Desertman on July 28, 2015, 05:13:22 PM
I think one of the reasons you will never/really have never seen a lot of plots that include large powers fighting over something is that there are some critical factors that have to fall into place for that to happen on the OOC front.

A) You have to have two clans with enough players in them to make a potential conflict interesting.
B) The leaders of both of those clans have to be players that staff can trust to, "Go along with the story.".
C) Those two clans have to be two clans that would actually go into a conflict with each other to begin with.

While it may not be perfectly easy, it's not that difficult either. It only seems difficult because in Armageddon's current state, all clans have been culled down to a highly compartmentalized remainder with precious little overlap, or with extreme power imbalances. I'll give three examples:

1) Not much more needs to be said about Allanak/GMHs.  It would be impossible for a Tor or Borsail noble to try and rival Oash with magicker servants. Even if a player did, they'd probably be tarred and feathered for it. (It doesn't help that there isn't even a question of anyone intruding on Tor's influence with the militia or Borsail's mul slaves, which are supposed to balance out Oash's magicker assets, as Tor/Borsail's strengths are entirely virtual). The only thing that might really throw a wrench into the South's geopolitical stasis is the actions of an independent power like Red Storm - but it's completely NPC.

2) To get away from Allanak, we can look at the tablelands. There are desert elves, gith and tribal humans. The gith are entirely NPC, so we can remove them from this example. Honestly, they're a rather weak NPC presence at that. They often seem moribund while the PC tribes run amok. Which just goes to show that it's not always the NPCs in charge. In some places the NPC factions need to be more prevalent, just as in some places, they need to be less prevalent.

That leaves the desert elves and the tribal humans. The major political powerhouse among the desert elves is the Blackwing. They built the Blackwing Outpost, which is in a massively important and strategic location, with a virtual monopoly on trade in the pah. Unlike the Sand Lord, they used to be PCs, but now they're entirely NPC. To the best of my knowledge, that is never going to change for a variety of reasons. That removes from the pah political scene a major source of potential interest and conflict. Blackwing's nearly complete lack of engagement over the last 10+ RL years has often made for weird scenarios.

Other antagonistic Desert Elf factions, like the Dune Stalkers or Red Fangs have been removed. That leaves only the Sun Runners who are untouchably powerful, and the Soh. Armageddon seems to excel at creating geopolitical realities where conflict is unthinkable, which is somewhat odd thematically. The Sun Runners are a good example. Without the Gith or the Blackwing to worry about, they have no competition, except with smaller, weaker and non-magickal tribes like the Soh or Arabetti humans.

3) Let's look at Tuluk. Well. Tuluk had mindbending templars, which it turns out, was incredibly effective at suppressing conflict!

So there's that.

On the other hand, you could very easily create a logical source of IC conflict, by taking two tribes that are roughly parallel with each other.

This makes sense, because in evolutionary term, that is how tribes tend to develop. If a tribe is too strong, they will have dominated/absorbed other tribes. If a tribe is too weak, they would have been absorbed. Therefore, unless you are deliberately setting a tribe towards the end of its existence (creating a classic Armageddon power imbalance), they are likely to have a certain rough parity. Success or failure then, primarily comes down to, as it has in our RL history, to whichever side has the most excellent leadership and ingenuity. That makes for fun conflict in a game too. It's always for the best when things hinge on a player's ingenuity, and not some virtual fait accompli.

Then put an oasis between those two tribes, or a lucrative caravan route. Both tribes will want to control those resources. The ascendant tribe would be able to exact tribute from the unluckier tribe. Eventually, the great leaders of the first tribe would die out, and over time, the resentful tribe will get a good leader of its own someday and try to reverse the situation. That makes for good conflict and good RP.

And sure. They could both decide to cooperate and split everything. If they're willing to accept less. And if accepting less has some consequences. And if they never have any disagreements whatsoever about watering rights, hunting rights, or caravan raiding/taxation. Even in that scenario, there'll be conflict in the leaders who brought about the peace trying to maintain it, and those disrupting it. (At the very least, outside forces either upstream or downstream will want to disrupt their harmony, which creates yet another vector for conflict).

I always thought that the Allanak/Tuluk wars missed a huge opportunity by waging it in the Red Desert of all places. It would have been far more interesting if it were waged in the Pah, along the obvious trade routes/ancient roads which connects them and is FAR more accessible than the Red Desert route (which is far harsher and farther away), and then the desert elf/human tribes would have been brought into the war as satellites/forced to choose sides or dare to resist both, as often happens.

tldr; It's not easy to create interesting and sustainable conflict. But it's not that hard either. I think the current way that clans are run actually demands more work from staff.

Quote from: musashi on July 28, 2015, 06:26:36 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 28, 2015, 03:38:08 PM
I get what you're saying, but IMO, it's mostly horseshit.

My comments were in reference to players who complain about the lack of conflict, which seems to apply to you ... but when conflict happens, complain about the how unsatisfying the resolution of the conflict was. Like the folks who are upset about a five man war band rolling out to track down a lone bandit who robbed one of their friends, or the folks who are dissatisfied with the nature of massive battles, and so on. This second one does not seem to apply to you.

If I understand you correctly you don't mind the brutal and fast paced way that Armageddon deals out death, and you can come out of a plot satisfied even when your character was collateral damage in the greater story arc.

You seem more concerned with what you see as a general lack of PvP conflict in the game.

That's not really what I was talking about though. It doesn't seem like you fall into the player group I was referencing.

I'm glad you clarified that. Although, I sympathize with anyone that's been one-shotted by a unit of half-giants as well! Individual PCs don't really have a place (nor should they) in those scrums, and I'd frag anyone who demanded I charge into it. The code simply doesn't allow for massive, epic army vs army battles to play out very fairly for the average joe. The kind of conflict I want to see more of is patrol vs patrol, scout vs scout, and less army vs army.

Within the realm of what it seems you were talking about, a lack of PvP conflict in the game ... Well, I can see your point in a way.

Each Allanaki noble house for example, has a particular specialty they do, so it seems unlikely that they would be fighting over market dominance. The GMH's are much the same.

I'm sure if both Kurac and Salarr were trying to corner the weapons market it would be an easy catalyst for ongoing perpetual conflict between the two till a victor emerged, but whether for better or worse, the game world is set up wherein the powers that be are in a loose collusion with one another to maintain their respective monopolies, crony capitalist style. So that source of conflict doesn't fit the game world.

There might be more room for that between tribes though. They seem in a much better position setting wise to need to compete over scarce resources.

Clearsighted's whole point is that the way the power structure is set up stifles open PC vs PC conflict rather than encourages it. You're mostly reinforcing that point. I think I'm not alone in saying that I'd love to see that change.

I'd agree that the power structure in game as is set up stifles open PC vs PC conflict over control of the means of production and resources yes.

The game's setting is such that all of that is already monopolized by the powers that be.

The best ground for conflict is insurgent organizations pushing against the powers that be. Takes a lot of staff work and balance is kind of wonky, since the "powers that be" (i.e. coded clans) tend to be codedly weaker versus a bunch of indies in hats. But conflict can be found if you look for it.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on July 28, 2015, 09:09:46 PM
The best ground for conflict is insurgent organizations pushing against the powers that be. Takes a lot of staff work and balance is kind of wonky, since the "powers that be" (i.e. coded clans) tend to be codedly weaker versus a bunch of indies in hats. But conflict can be found if you look for it.

Just from my observation over the years, the big problem with that type of conflict is that the players with characters in the insurgent organizations make the mistake of assuming that they are just competing with the other player characters who are in the "powers that be" clans, and they over look the virtual power that the larger clan holds in the world. Then, when they do something that requires staff to make the virtual world react, they feel very discriminated against by the force with which they were shut down.

Or to put it more visually:
|      /-\                          |
|~~~~~/   \~~~~~~~~~~~~/-\~~~~~~~~~~|
|    /-----\          /   \         |
|                    /     \        |
|                   /       \       |
|                  /         \      |
|                 /           \     |
|                /             \    |
|               /               \   |
|              /-----------------\  |
|-----------------------------------|

Indie groups start to act as if the competition is only between the visible part of the two ice burgs, so from their perspective they're doing great.

I don't even blame them in all cases. We can't see what's below the water in the virtual world clearly.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 28, 2015, 03:38:08 PM
I get what you're saying, but IMO, it's mostly horseshit. Armageddon delivers that kind of conflict just fine. It used to anyways. Lots of games do/did. It simply requires competition and a couple antagonistic clans.

Give people something meaningful to compete over and they will happily fight over it and enjoy the conflict. Without any of the condescending need, as you articulated, to be the hero or have their ego stroked. Legitimate conflict is interesting. Conflict for the sake of conflict is less so - but that's all Arm has right now.

This entire post contains some glaring inaccuracies that are presented as fact despite not matching up with the reality of the situation. I'm going to try to address what I can.

Quote
Take away all antagonistic clans, and all real sources of legitimate competition for territory or resources, and all you get is PCs vs NPCs, and PCs whose 'elaborate plots and dramas' that you seem so fond of, mostly come down to mudsex-related lovers quarrels, or the odd rivalry born more out of boredom than anything else.

We have antagonistic clans, or clans that are perfectly suited for PC antagonists open at present. Frequently, the same people who decry a lack of options for PC antagonists do not ever utilize the existing options for PC antagonists. This is remarkably similar to situations like players who greatly lament the limitations on PC slave roles, only for very, very few people to apply for these roles when they were opened. We recently had two city-stats at war, and I assure you it was not as a result of an odd rivalry or mudsex quarrel.

Quote
Me? I'd rather have something as simple as fighting over the rights to a watering hole, or who gets to tax a tiny village, or the right to control the spice smuggling through the 'rinth. The Allanaki noble houses would all be much more interesting if they weren't so highly compartmentalized and had interests outside Allanak that they could expand or contest for, and it was inside the city where they were forced to play 'mostly' nice.

The scenarios you present are all, for the most part, things PCs can attempt in-game. More often than not, success depends on the player. Your PC and his friends can certainly declare a claim to a watering hole and try to charge people who try to use it, or try to edge out spice smuggling competition, or whatever else. You also state that noble houses are compartmentalized, and evidently, not very interesting. If they're not interesting to you, that's perfectly fine, but please don't assume that means there is no conflict, or that they are not interesting to other people, or even what the extent of their interests are. In Tuluk, the nobles (PC and NPC alike) were consistently at each other's throats. Houses outright slaughtered each other! You can dismiss these conflicts as "mudsex and gossipy bitching" but you would be incorrect.

Quote
Moreover, I suspect that giving clans a compelling reason to compete with each other is not something they even care about or want to do, so it's less a poor job of it, and more just not on their agenda to begin with.

This is incorrect.

Quote
There are no real PvP politics, as there is nothing much to gain, and nothing much to lose. Politics, such as it is, is directed towards NPCs. Or more commonly, reacting to the ruthless competition between rival NPCs while maintaining a safe distance. I think staff handles PC vs NPC and NPC vs NPC conflict quite well.

People will say 'be the change'. Well, guess what? I don't need my ego stroked. So even though I'd like conflict, I tend to feel bad about drumming up a completely arbitrary reason for destroying someone. Whereas if I have a legitimate reason (protecting my territory, or such) it's perfectly fun. And anyways, the people who advocate this 'be the change' harshness have an interesting habit of preying exclusively on the weak/newbish, rather than those who would actually be a challenge. So fuck those guys too.

Let's avoid making baseless assumptions about what the people who advocate "be the change" do or do not do in game. I also think all of the players involved in political conflict with each other at present are pretty confident there are things to gain or lose. We frequently enable players to play in 'conflict' roles and the third rule of the game reminds us that PCs are free to be assholes. More often than not, PCs do not actually want to be assholes.

I wasn't referring to city-state wars, Mord. That qualifies as PC vs NPC or NPC vs NPC. Which I said staff was doing a good job at.

Anyways, that was quite a while ago, and since then, one of those city-states and all of their hostile clans were uh, closed down.

I didn't say noble houses weren't interesting to me. I said they were so overly specialized as to make for very little potential for meaningfully overlapping. I think Borsail, Tor and Oash are all fascinating and very interesting. I just wish they were allowed more room for competition.

What are these 'antagonistic' clans that are open for application? The Soh? The 'rinthi guild? Some might suggest those barely count. In any case, I don't think anyone would deny that there are less available now, than there used to be.

I'm glad to learn that staff is trying to give clans a compelling reason to compete with each other. Personally, I haven't seen it since the last city-state war. But that was mostly tangential to the PC vs NPC/NPC vs NPC conflict that I said staff was great at.

Honestly, I think calling my post riddled with glaring inaccuracies is overly defensive at best. Because I didn't see any inaccuracies pointed out, beyond a couple of items that seem to have fallen prey to either assumptions of your own or misinterpretations.

Please don't take every incident of mild criticism (at best) as some kind of damning indictment of the job that staff is doing. Staff is doing a great job. Do I want to see more meaningful player vs player conflict? Yes. Do we have an evident disagreement if you think the current conflict is perfectly meaningful? Yes. Does it need to be treated like I'm shitting on the whole game or making baseless assumptions? No.

Maybe the case is different for a few select players involved in very subtle and secret machinations, but what I wrote was the truth for 95% of the playerbase.

Quote from: Mordiggian on July 29, 2015, 12:30:57 AM
The scenarios you present are all, for the most part, things PCs can attempt in-game. More often than not, success depends on the player. Your PC and his friends can certainly declare a claim to a watering hole and try to charge people who try to use it, or try to edge out spice smuggling competition, or whatever else.

This misses the point of my post.

There is no 'real' PC-dominated spice smuggling in this game. There is no profitable route to control. All spice smuggling (of the kind that doesn't arrive in someone's argosy) is virtually between NPCs. You could pretend to be a smuggler. But that wouldn't be what I was referring to. I meant having an actual reason to try and control something, instead of just arbitrarily or for pretend. There is no triangle of deceit, conflict and ruthless competition between PC militia and opposing 'rinthi gangs, and shady Kuraci dealers. It's all virtual, or is a passing affectation at best.

And what watering hole would you suggest that a clan (And I'm referring to clans in this whole post, not random groups of indie PCs) try and charge people to use? The single real 'watering hole' in the game, in terms of being an oasis along a major trade route, which everyone knows about...and who attempting to control it would bring  those few hapless PCs into suicidal conflict with several mega-powerful NPC-dominated factions?

What I was suggesting was something more realistic and modest, that a couple of player-dominated clans/tribes could realistically tussle over without cutting the strings of a half dozen Damoclean swords hanging overhead.

This isn't about what a few random dudes can 'claim' which no one pays attention to. It's about having real, sustainable areas of competition between clans, and more than just pretend/virtual reasons to carry out said conflict.

*ahem* there might or might not be unaffiliated PC smugglers... I hate to sound like a jackass, but it's likely best found out IC.

Quote from: Revenant on July 29, 2015, 09:02:58 AM
*ahem* there might or might not be unaffiliated PC smugglers... I hate to sound like a jackass, but it's likely best found out IC.

It's fine that there are a few unaffiliated people pretending and RPing around it. But there isn't any real geopolitical/conflicty situation around it, that compels competing interests/clans to get involved.

It's neat that people are doing their best to simulate the virtual situation. But there's nothing particularly compelling, ICly, to either demand it or make it stop.

Ideally, given how centrally important and thematic spice smuggling/restriction is in Allanak (to the point of being a capital offense), there should be various suppliers competing to supply the product, like shady Kuraci agents whose sole focus is dealing with 'rinth smugglers and gangs. There should be at least two gangs in the 'rinth, humans and elves, who have reason to compete over who has a lock on the spice supply, with the bulk of the product received by whoever can best guarantee a profit from it. These gangs should have intermediaries in the rest of Allanak who then buy the spice from them, and deal with various aides and such. Militia should have an incentive to investigate this, and otherwise stop it or be bribed. Finally, spice should be something that people are compelled to want to buy and use in large quantities. This could be very easily done, and suggestions have been made in the past (such as having spice addiction give mild mindbender side-effects).

The creative, interesting solution to these problems is to come up with conceits or coded quirks that encourage it. The boring/uninterested solution is to go the 'just pretend route'.

Everything I just described was chock full of Player vs Player conflict and interaction.

So no, I didn't take what you said to be jackassery, but it does completely miss the point.

Quote from: Desertman on July 28, 2015, 05:40:32 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on July 28, 2015, 05:36:21 PM

Quote from: Desertman on July 28, 2015, 05:21:20 PM
I would leave so many folks alive and have so many more interesting scenes with them when they came to, tied up, in my dungeon, with me holding my scissors.  ;D

Dungeon RP ...  One of my true favorites.  You really have to prove you want to live to get out of the Dungeon.

say (throwing a small clay jar of bimbal salve down to the zaftig woman) It puts the lotion on it's skin or else it gets the hose again!

emote strokes his stuffed gortok pup gently, peering down into the hole.

Goodbye hooorseees

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 29, 2015, 12:39:10 AM.
Maybe the case is different for a few select players involved in very subtle and secret machinations, but what I wrote was the truth for 95% of the playerbase.

It's possible that my experiences as those of the 5%, but on the whole, I disagree.

I disagree that there is no or very little genuine MCB going on.
I disagree that there are not good reasons for people to be in conflict.
I agree that raiding clans provided a ready source of conflict, but I don't know that I would agree that it was "quality".  When you were the one being "raided" from three rooms away, it inevitably felt like griefing.
I agree that the game feels "safer" now than it used to, but that may be due in part to my own increasing skill at it.
I strongly disagree that clans do not come into fatal conflict.
I strongly disagree that noble houses do not compete.
I strongly disagree that there is no smuggling, with associated corruption and competition.
I strongly disagree that there is no PC-planned, PC on PC violence that does not result from drama queening.
I agree that the game could benefit from more sustained conflict, or a greater volume of intriguing conflict.

And, as for people being defensive... You might not be shitting all over everything, as you say, but your convivial, constructive, and equitable tone is not coming through in your posts.  Your interest in the game and improving it is, though.  I say that so hopefully it's clear I'm not trying to bash on you, just being frank.

(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1093636/kobe2.gif)

I learned a new word! Thanks JDM!


con·viv·i·al
kənˈvivēəl/Submit
adjective
(of an atmosphere or event) friendly, lively, and enjoyable.
(of a person) cheerful and friendly; jovial.
synonyms:   friendly, genial, affable, amiable, congenial, agreeable, good-humored, cordial, warm, sociable, outgoing, gregarious, companionable, clubby, hail-fellow-well-met, cheerful, jolly, jovial, lively; More

Quote from: James de Monet on July 29, 2015, 10:55:46 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 29, 2015, 12:39:10 AM.
Maybe the case is different for a few select players involved in very subtle and secret machinations, but what I wrote was the truth for 95% of the playerbase.

It's possible that my experiences as those of the 5%, but on the whole, I disagree.

I disagree that there is no or very little genuine MCB going on.
I disagree that there are not good reasons for people to be in conflict.
I agree that raiding clans provided a ready source of conflict, but I don't know that I would agree that it was "quality".  When you were the one being "raided" from three rooms away, it inevitably felt like griefing.
I agree that the game feels "safer" now than it used to, but that may be due in part to my own increasing skill at it.
I strongly disagree that clans do not come into fatal conflict.
I strongly disagree that noble houses do not compete.
I strongly disagree that there is no smuggling, with associated corruption and competition.
I strongly disagree that there is no PC-planned, PC on PC violence that does not result from drama queening.
I agree that the game could benefit from more sustained conflict, or a greater volume of intriguing conflict.

And, as for people being defensive... You might not be shitting all over everything, as you say, but your convivial, constructive, and equitable tone is not coming through in your posts.  Your interest in the game and improving it is, though.  I say that so hopefully it's clear I'm not trying to bash on you, just being frank.

Well. If you take all my statements as being absolutist to the point of 'this never happens', then I strongly disagree with myself as well! If it's being taken that way, it's undoubtedly my fault. But I thought it went without saying that there are exceptions.

What I'm actually saying is that it doesn't happen as often as it should, and that the game/environment doesn't encourage it as much as it should.

When Mord points to the city-state wars between Allanak and Tuluk as being an example of how wrong I am, I just don't know how to take that for example. Because 1) That was a good thing I'm proud of the staff for pulling off, and 2) Is clearly more of a PC vs NPC/NPC vs NPC plot, that I praised staff for doing so well, 3) Somewhat ancient history at this point, and 4) All of the clans involved on one side have since been shuttered.

I'm well aware that nobles do compete. People do play spice smugglers (however artificial/arbitrary the incentive). People do die for reasons besides drama queening (however rarely). Obviously, clans do occasionally kill each other (although, I'd suggest that clans kill their own far far more often).

But I think the way the factions are currently disposed works to suppress interesting pvp conflict more than to encourage it. I'm glad, that according to Mord, it isn't intentional.

No. It's not.

Murder first.
Corrupt second.
Betray third.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 30, 2015, 02:10:41 AM
I thought it went without saying that there are exceptions.

It goes without saying that there are exceptions, sure.  It is my experience that these things happen often enough to be statistically significant, however.  I wouldn't call them exceptions.

Quote from: Clearsighted on July 30, 2015, 02:10:41 AM
What I'm actually saying is that it doesn't happen as often as it should, and that the game/environment doesn't encourage it as much as it should.

I would agree that they don't happen as often as they could, not sure about should, but I might be able to get behind the game encouraging them more, in measured ways.

As for the war, from my perspective, I would describe it more as a story than anything else.  It seemed like that story played out with a cast of characters who were, on either side, PCs, NPCs, and VNPCs in equal measure, and much more of it may have been PC driven than is readily apparent.

At first, I was going to question how any motivation in game could be 'pretended', but I think I see your point in that no one needs to pretend to want to make ivory hair needles.  There is (PC) supply and (NPC) demand.  People want(ed) to make them IG and IRL.  I suppose things like smuggling do require more of an IC motivation, as there is less coded vehicle available to them (and faster ways to make money exist).  Half of the game is 'what you make of it', though.  Like exploration, and laws, and religion, and spice, and atmosphere, and pain, etc.  I suppose some of it could be reinforced with code, but as in the case of hair needles, I'm not sure that makes the RP surrounding it more deep and vibrant.  And I still feel that using the word "pretending" disparagingly in a role-playing game is...a little odd.

I think one problem is that a lot of people "want some conflict" without having to play the person who instigates the conflict.

I can guarantee if you show up and act confrontational to the right people, very quickly you are going to find yourself in a conflict.

However, if you are playing a "good guy" and you are complaining there aren't enough "bad guys" providing you with conflict, well, there are always going to be more good guys than bad guys...even in Armageddon.

If you truly WANT conflict, and don't just WANT to be the hero in those conflicts, then be a bad guy. I promise you, you will get it. You will also provide some other people with some fun conflict, and for that, we thank you.

I've played some villains and some truly rotten people. I was NEVER short any conflict any time I wanted it.

Though I screwed up his death scene with my stupidity about the code (and my visualization of how a certain contraption worked/looked), the character Eye that I played (the gold-eyed something or another man) was in a constant state of conflict with a lot of people. I had a ton of fun with him. I wasn't just being part of the conflict, I WAS the conflict. Constantly being hunted and constantly hunting people was a ton of fun, hopefully for everyone involved.

I don't want to do that with every PC. But I highly recommend it if you feel you are lacking some conflict. Play the villain. Mess with people. Screw with people. Enjoy it.

Don't expect a lot of conflict coming your way constantly if you are in fact not confrontational and do not conflict with people.

Quote from: Desertman on July 30, 2015, 11:09:54 AM
I think one problem is that a lot of people "want some conflict" without having to play the person who instigates the conflict.

I can guarantee if you show up and act confrontational to the right people, very quickly you are going to find yourself in a conflict.

This is correct. I'm one of those people. I have a hard time coming up with a completely arbitrary reason to just fuck someone over. Nine times out of 10, you have to go so far out of your way to get into a confrontation, that you just come off as a crazy person anyways, which turns everyone else against you. This is rough to pull off unless your specifically defining character idea is 'crazy person everyone hates and who will die within a month'. Or if you mostly only confront the weak and clueless. If I had a sid for every time I've seen a militia PC pick on an obviously confused newb, I'd have like seven sids.

I do have one or two ideas to get around this, and to make it more palatable, which I'll explore on a future character.

What I have seen, is that when there is a meaningful reason to confront someone, like protecting one's territory, or because your clan preys on a particular stretch of road, or two clans are dedicated foes (such as some Southern clans vs some Northern clans) that people were perfectly fine and eager to instigate conflict, since the confrontations made sense.

There's always one or two guys out there who are willing to play the sociopath that everyone hates. Bless them. What's ironic is when I see people trying to keep them alive, since they're so rare to have around to begin with.

This thread sums up the entire reason I've had some difficulties getting back into ARM. Everyone I've seen seems to want to be goodie goodies and support everyone. Hold communal hand holdings and shit.
I miss feeling like my life is in danger. Now I just fear people hugging me.

And the main reason (from what I and anyone I've spoken to) people do not wanna play the 'bad guy' is because the minute you do -anything-. Every single PC, Templars, etc get together for a man hunt. Everyone suddenly knows what you look like and is chasing you down because you robbed one salt grebber. I can name off the top my head at least a dozen times this has happened. "Oh Amos got robbed. Call the Templars and Milita! Everyone get together and hunt one guy for robbing a poor grebber!" Yes.. because anyone would give a shit about joe poor ass over there.

Honestly why bad guys should just kill people. I'd rather rob them, rp, leave them alive to steal from again.. but then every single PC knows your mdesc, sdesc, name, and nickname within 2 hours.
Not to mention if you try to rp it out. Most people spam flee from you. The minute they see you in the same room.

It's not hard to come up with valid reasons for being a bandit, or killer. Not at all. That are legit roleplaying reasons.

TO NOTE: My comment about the big man hunts. Is not against a few friends going after the bandit but when Templars get involved, and Milita, and every other PC in town. I've seen it happen multiple times.

During my stint as a militia leader we went on a few manhunts for the 'notorious' bandits, the badass ones that had gained a bit of fame for killing multiple people and promised me a promotion on their capture/death. Whenever it was petty crime, bob the hunter's apartment got robbed, idgaf, amos got robbed for his backpack by some elf, idgaf, someone stabbed an elf.. why are you telling me? Let's celebrate with a drink! I made a point to only go after big fish or those people who effected/upset people that had actual influence. Commoner on commoner crime, hell I sometimes looked the other way when it was happening right in front of me, it surprised a lot pc's when mine did this but hey.. welcome to Zalanthas.

Law turning a blind eye to petty shit should be a bit more commonplace. Or taking a bribe to ignore petty shit, anyway, which was more often the case.

The city-wide manhunts for salt flats raiders and grassland assholes I've definitely seen get out of hand quite quickly. It's resulting in most the raiders I've seen nowadays almost coming off as griefers instead of interesting pc's.

A figure arrives from the west
A figure attacks you

The best intense scenes I've ever had in arm is raiding and being raided, I haven't experienced a descent scene in this regard in two years? Though I intend to be playing the villian for awhile, be the change etc etc.

Quote from: BlackMagic0 on August 02, 2015, 02:10:45 PM
And the main reason (from what I and anyone I've spoken to) people do not wanna play the 'bad guy' is because the minute you do -anything-. Every single PC, Templars, etc get together for a man hunt. Everyone suddenly knows what you look like and is chasing you down because you robbed one salt grebber. I can name off the top my head at least a dozen times this has happened. "Oh Amos got robbed. Call the Templars and Milita! Everyone get together and hunt one guy for robbing a poor grebber!" Yes.. because anyone would give a shit about joe poor ass over there.

That's why 'bad guys', or antagonists, need a clan of their own. If the Red Fangs were an indie outfit, they would have collapsed in a RL month. There was an incredible amount of hostility towards them and survival was very hit or miss in the wastes. The clan survived and thrived because it had a camp to coalesce around, and when people died, they didn't have to go through some complex initiation ritual or seek special permission. They could just app right back in normally.

Antagonists have a high turnover, and they only work if the staff makes it easier for fresh blood to infuse them, as they did with Fangs, which were as simple as apping into the Soh.

Quote from: Majikal on August 02, 2015, 04:31:45 PM
Commoner on commoner crime, hell I sometimes looked the other way when it was happening right in front of me, it surprised a lot pc's when mine did this but hey.. welcome to Zalanthas.

It's great that you did this. Most can't seem to resist the opportunity to jump over any tiny spat, because they've got so little else going on. Having a modicum of restraint is an incredible virtue, when playing a Militia/templar.

If you feel the need to ask... the answer is probably yes.

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 02, 2015, 06:52:06 PM
Most can't seem to resist the opportunity to jump over any tiny spat, because they've got so little else going on. Having a modicum of restraint is an incredible virtue, when playing a Militia/templar.

However, having too much restraint is bad for the game world. There is a very fine line people have to walk, and the best way of doing that is to make sure that the documentation is upheld. If it's a human v. elf thing? Side with the human, fine them both; the human 20 coins, the necker 50.

When it's warranted, IC reasons and whatnot, I don't have an issue with it. I don't like doing it, it makes me really sad, so, I try and do my best to avoid it, I really have to be pushed, as I can recognize the amount of effort that goes into concept, character development and skill development, and appreciate it. It's when people go out of their way to find reasons that I take issue. If I get the sense someone is OOCly just LOOKING for an excuse to kill other characters, then I'll investigate further, if, after a good deal more investigation I figure a person's sole OOC focus is to kill people, they go on the "naughty" list. I'll avoid interacting with these players and their characters as much as possible. If pursued unreasonably, then I'll fight back.

Meanwhile, conflict, threats, sabotage, bribes, favors, grudgingly making alliances with enemies and/or undesirables (by any means necessary), sure, love these things, as long as they are kept reasonable. But sometimes boundaries are overstepped, horrendously, and, things happen. If you put murder first, though, it makes betrayal and corruption harder to access. I prefer corruption, myself, then betrayal, then murder as a last resort. Corruption usually works for me, well. It depends on the priorities my PC has and their perception at the time. I, for one, see plenty of murder IG, but murdering decreases the number of characters around to corrupt and betray. Maybe it's not as much murder as it once was, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

EDIT: I don't know about anyone else, but my characters constantly feel in danger, like they're walking a fine line, dancing in the fire, sometimes, you slip, but, I enjoy it, and prefer to stretch that experience out as much as possible (provided it's not TOO intense), it's the conclusion that's usually a downer. I suppose, if you want to feel in danger, generate some conflict, make enemies, it's not too difficult to pull it off. as Dman was saying, the trouble comes in expecting someone to bring it to you.

I've bumped into the conspicuous dearth of conflict between clans.  Everyone who runs the prominent clans happens to be friends, with few exceptions.  It makes getting things done difficult.  People are too afraid to step on the toes of the people that they're meant to be conspiring against. 

Quote from: ibusoe on August 15, 2015, 04:09:03 PM
I've bumped into the conspicuous dearth of conflict between clans.  Everyone who runs the prominent clans happens to be friends, with few exceptions.  It makes getting things done difficult.  People are too afraid to step on the toes of the people that they're meant to be conspiring against.  

Publicly, maybe... but I know from experience in at least two clans over the last two years that privately there's a lot of inter-clan hatred, and MCB.

Those who you think are relatively nice boring people to you may be savage, evil people to someone else.
That friendly person may of murdered someone and is totally comfortable not telling anyone.
That other friendly person might be a cannibal on break and is enjoying some scrab meat for a change.
That other friendly person may be a defiler, mindbender, ect.

Friendly = The most dangerous.

Quote from: Schrodingers Cat on August 02, 2015, 09:44:29 PM
If you feel the need to ask... the answer is probably yes.

IMO, that is what is wrong with you, OP, you asked.
Forgiveness is better than permission.

Quote from: nauta on August 15, 2015, 04:11:02 PM
Publicly, maybe... but I know from experience in at least two clans over the last two years that privately there's a lot of inter-clan hatred, and MCB.

I know that you guys mean well, and if you look at my earlier posts on the topic you'll see that I initially agreed with this position.

The thing is, my current character is placed high enough that if substantial conflict were taking place, the symptoms of this at least would be visible to me, even if the principles, the architects, the stakeholders, des agents provacteurs, the stakes, the methods and the attack vectors weren't apparent to me.

As a player I think the problem has existed for most of a decade that conservative role play is rewarded more than risk taking.  I've seen things improve a lot during my tenure, but I think that if risk taking were rewarded a bit more, then we'd see more conflict. 

EDIT:  Most of my motive for writing in about this isn't to complain - I'm having fun with the game.  Rather I want to validate for the benefit of the people that are complaining, that they aren't crazy to think so.

Quote from: ibusoe on August 16, 2015, 07:44:15 PM

Quote from: nauta on August 15, 2015, 04:11:02 PM
Publicly, maybe... but I know from experience in at least two clans over the last two years that privately there's a lot of inter-clan hatred, and MCB.

I know that you guys mean well, and if you look at my earlier posts on the topic you'll see that I initially agreed with this position.

The thing is, my current character is placed high enough that if substantial conflict were taking place, the symptoms of this at least would be visible to me, even if the principles, the architects, the stakeholders, des agents provacteurs, the stakes, the methods and the attack vectors weren't apparent to me.

As a player I think the problem has existed for most of a decade that conservative role play is rewarded more than risk taking.  I've seen things improve a lot during my tenure, but I think that if risk taking were rewarded a bit more, then we'd see more conflict. 

::)

I think there are several clans/houses which are a cockpit of conflict and intrigue which staff, like Mord, can be justifiably proud of provoking. Secret plots, political conspiracies, etc.

I also think that maybe less than 10% of the playerbase is ever meaningfully exposed to or participates in such excitement. I believe, through long personal experience that the game is currently largely devoid of organized 'mundane' conflict which is more easily grasped by the majority. Like territorial conflicts, rival patrols or even, rivalry which wasn't so subtle and restricted as to be largely unknown/irrelevant to the majority.

I think staffers generally feel like a lot is going on as they spend most of their time observing and reacting to the hidden masterminds. But you have to see it from the perspective of Bill Bynner and Tim Tribal, or even Greg Grebber too. They see nothing going on. Maybe they'll die in some RPT, but that's as close as they'll get. Tribal pvp-rp has essentially devolved into taking pot shots at rogue gickers and not angering the Sun Runners, who lacking a credible Gith or Blackwing foil are hugely over represented, power wise.

Staff's two main retorts to this (Well, Mord's) is to either 1) be the change or 2) reminding us of the Allank-Tuluk war.

This misses the point in two key ways:

Firstly, the main concern is about clan-wide dispositions and rivalry which can promote mass organized rp-pvp with legitimate reasons to work against each other. Staff are great at giving pcs and npcs good and interesting reasons to oppose each other, but outside a select few, have done a poor job of setting a stage for interesting conflict for anyone who isn't their clan spymaster.

Secondly, the most obvious example of organized rp-pvp rivalry was recently extinguished by the closure of all the Tuluk clans. Closing Tuluk was a good thing, but the game needs a new more tangible rivalry for the plebs to grasp.

I was mosty done with this thread, but I thought ibuesoe's concerns deserved more than a dismissive eyeroll. Maybe Mord's eyeroll means 'we already know this and machinations are already at work to fill the conflict void and make us whiners regret our asking for it". If so, great! If the eyeroll meant "everything is great right now, you're just not important enough to be aware of it", then I stand by my post. The unimportant people of Zalanthas deserve conflict and rivalry too.

Sometimes I wish staff would get away from their plot fascinations having to be these big epic affairs with mindbenders, magick, templars and dragons. A 'plot' as simple as two tribes competing over the same watering hole, or two merchant houses competing over the same caravan road or for exclusive privileges with some outpost or city would be infinitely more interesting as a change of pace. Either conflict might start small but could rapidly grow to affect many others, such as the Byn deciding whose contract to accept.

I sometimes feel like we're not playing the same game.  I'm up to my eyeballs in MCB, and I thought for sure even a little of it would've caught someone's attention.  Maybe Zalanthas needs a News Channel.  "In other news, Joe Commoner was murdered, today, and Jane Merchant hasn't been seen in weeks!  Here's Tom with the weather."

I dunno, I can't contribute meaningfully to this thread, because I don't get it.

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 07:45:58 AM
I sometimes feel like we're not playing the same game.  I'm up to my eyeballs in MCB, and I thought for sure even a little of it would've caught someone's attention.  Maybe Zalanthas needs a News Channel.  "In other news, Joe Commoner was murdered, today, and Jane Merchant hasn't been seen in weeks!  Here's Tom with the weather."

I dunno, I can't contribute meaningfully to this thread, because I don't get it.

It helps to get away from the MCB meme and actually look at the clans in game and where they have meaningful overlap. A few clans in Nak are doing pretty good, if you're well positioned enough to appreciate the subtleties.

MCB by itself is meaningless to debate. Each of us could go out and murder, corrupt and betray more. I could care less for anyone's personal level of MCB because it is all so relative.

All we can gauge with reasonable accuracy is the main dispositions of the major tribes. We can see for ourselves that rival Tuluk clans are gone. That tribal raiders like dune stalkers, red fangs or benjari are gone. Antagonistic races like mantis, halflings or Gith are gone. It is a good thing that some of these entities are gone, but they were never replaced.

We can factually judge current clan dispositions and assert with a high degree of confidence that for most of them there is either a severe dearth of institutional rivalry or it is so subtle as to be irrelevant to most players. Some existing rivalries should be more unsubtle so more than 2-3 pcs can appreciate it.

Compared to the above, an individual player's personal MCB quotient has no bearing on the game's greater clan level rp-pvp potential. Not even anecdotally.

My own worthless anecdotal experience is that vastly more MCB happens within clans than between them. Excepting RPTs, I would wager most (not all) long term pc deaths are internal affairs. Unfortunately, people get bored, and seeing little incentive for safety in numbers, tend to turn on each other.

I've never known a clan more tight knit than the red fangs, even despite major personality clashes. But that was because every semi-skilled character was valuable to the group's survival.

I dunno, I actually thought this thread was about whether there was enough danger and conflict in this game.  You appear to have your own referendum.

Could I ask possibly how many of the people who think the game is too tame are actually playing it right now?

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 06:47:09 PM
I dunno, I actually thought this thread was about whether there was enough danger and conflict in this game.  You appear to have your own referendum.

Could I ask possibly how many of the people who think the game is too tame are actually playing it right now?

You could ask that, however I think it would be beside the point.  If my opinion is needed, there is the EXACT RIGHT AMOUNT OF MCB currently in the game.  I had a glance at the original post and agree with your assessment in that sense.

However that's not what certain of other players were alluding to.  Secretive Clan-based PVP?  Apparently there's plenty.  Crime?  Plenty, my last few characters have been robbed like fuck.  Racism?  Harassment?  Yeah, lots of it.  There were some scenes in the Gaj the other day that were really mean and intense.  I love it.

But what certain of other players are alluding to is the lack of Open Clan-based PVP.  I was personally corroborating that this is largely absent, and I'll stick by my diagnosis of the issue.

I'll stop short of raising a complaint about it, because it wouldn't really improve my gaming experience for there to be more of it.  If anything, having large groups of people who simply refuse to talk to other large groups of people would be limiting.

My actual purpose in speaking up, though was out of journalistic integrity.  Plenty of people are telling them that there is lot of Open Clan-based PVP, when in fact there isn't.  It's somewhat comical that a staffer came in here to suggest that Secretive Clan-based PVP is an acceptable substitute for Open Clan-based PVP, because that's sort of a "let them eat cake" argument.

Is there an easy solution to this problem?  Maybe not.  The game is pretty much optimized in my opinion, which means that if resources were pulled to create more open conflict, that would pull resources away from the criminal plots, the political intrigues and the mercantile adventures.  Things would probably be better if we had more players, because then we could recruit more staffers and then we could do more with the game.

Quote from: ibusoe on August 18, 2015, 07:36:17 PM
If my opinion is needed, there is the EXACT RIGHT AMOUNT OF MCB currently in the game.

I'm glad you said that.  I don't wanna feel like I need to start killing people for looking at my character funny or some stupid insult given.  That's not really a stretch for them, though, so ...  How does that song go?  "If you got the money, honey, I got the time!"

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 08:08:23 PM

Quote from: ibusoe on August 18, 2015, 07:36:17 PM
If my opinion is needed, there is the EXACT RIGHT AMOUNT OF MCB currently in the game.

I'm glad you said that.  I don't wanna feel like I need to start killing people for looking at my character funny or some stupid insult given.  That's not really a stretch for them, though, so ...  How does that song go?  "If you got the money, honey, I got the time!"

For the game being what it is, geopolitically, the level of MCB is fine. And again, it's highly personal. We each largely determine the amount of MCB that we surround ourselves with, depending on the circumstances we find our characters in. Given what circumstances and opportunities currently exist in game, most characters really would need to bend over backwards to arbitrarily include more mayhem in their lives.

What bothers me, and some others, is that the current clan setup is boring, with a lack of the kind of institutional tension that once characterized rival city-states or rival tribes. With vanishingly rare exceptions, everyone is pretty much playing on the 'same side', and the main threats tend to be NPCs who everyone rallies against. There's still internal pissing contests and some deviant gets stomped now and then (with people more or less tripping over themselves to do the honor), but there's nothing like an organized rivalry of opposing PC-populated factions.

If it does exist, it's so subtle and secretive that the masses are largely unaware of it. Which might make things exciting for the elite, but a bit more dull for the rank and file.

Personally, I find the lamest conflict with another real player character more exciting than the most brilliant written conflict with an NPC (it's just the nature of 'competing' against another human), so for me, this is an unfortunate state of affairs. I remain optimistic though, because I think the issue will resolve itself, as staff acclimates to the post-Tuluk world. I say this because I've seen them make several good decisions lately about the game's direction, and I can't imagine they would overlook the void created by removing mutually antagonistic factions from the game. After all, the best part of having Tuluk, with the most fun and excitement, was when Allanak and Tuluk were really having at it, with opposing raids and patrols.

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 18, 2015, 07:36:18 AMI think staffers generally feel like a lot is going on as they spend most of their time observing and reacting to the hidden masterminds. But you have to see it from the perspective of Bill Bynner and Tim Tribal, or even Greg Grebber too. They see nothing going on. Maybe they'll die in some RPT, but that's as close as they'll get. Tribal pvp-rp has essentially devolved into taking pot shots at rogue gickers and not angering the Sun Runners, who lacking a credible Gith or Blackwing foil are hugely over represented, power wise.

Bill Bynner -- If Bill is some nobody who just joined the Byn, he might not know why those firekanks are being rounded up. It's his job to just be a meat shield. If Bill Bynner is a long-lived, highly-involved Trooper who has proved dependable to the Sergeant, then maybe he'd know that House Bwaha is planning on lighting House Tehehe's barracks on fire with them. But if Bill Bynner is literally some nobody, why would he know the reasons? For all the Sergeant knows, Bill Bynner is trying to be a spy for House Tehehe, and telling him would cause major problems later. Unless Bill Bynner needs to know or has earned the right, why would he know?

Tim Tribal -- Tim is a tribal. Is he from a hard coded tribe? Then maybe he can learn about what's happening from his tribemates, and help them. Tribes are close, so sharing of information for Tim might be more common then it is for Bill. But even so, Tim doesn't get a free pass. If he's not helping in some way that advances the plot, things might not be brought up to him, by his fellows. How can Tim contribute to his tribe? Or, how can Tim figure out what's happening with other tribes? If Tim is tribe A, and tribe B and C are having a spat, unless they think tribe A can help them, they're probably not inclined to tell Tim Al'A very much.

Greg Grebber -- Greg Grebber grebs. He doesn't work for a House. He's not lifesworn to anyone. Unless he makes friends with people who are oddly chatty, or Allanak is covered in riots and on fire, he's probably not going to notice a lot of plots. Even if he does, unless he has friends and influence, or some sort of affiliations, he's probably not going to have much of an impact on what happens. Why? Because... Who cares about a nobody grebber?

QuoteFirstly, the main concern is about clan-wide dispositions and rivalry which can promote mass organized rp-pvp with legitimate reasons to work against each other. Staff are great at giving pcs and npcs good and interesting reasons to oppose each other, but outside a select few, have done a poor job of setting a stage for interesting conflict for anyone who isn't their clan spymaster.

I don't know that staff can be held responsible for how clans function in relations to plots. If Lord NPCfablous tells Lady PCawesome of The Issue, it's up to Lady PCawesome to decide how she wants to handle it. Why? Because she's a leader PC. She can utilize minions and other clans however she sees fit. If she only wants to involve the clan spymaster, it's probably because she decided he's the only one with relevant skills to the issue. If you're not lifesworn, or if she doesn't know you well, maybe she doesn't want to risk exposing you to the Big Issue. That's not staff's fault. That's not even her fault! That's just one realistic, IC way to take and handle a plot.

Furthermore, not all plots even originate with staff! Sometimes, it's a PC who comes up with it to begin with. Even if it's PC-originating, that PC is making the same judgement calls. In a world full of MCB, nobody's entitled to being involved in a plot, when one wrong move can cause all the pieces to tumble apart.

Have I sometimes wished I was involved in more plots? Do I wish leadership had trusted my PC more? Absolutely. I've been there. It can suck to not feel like stuff's happening, or not be involved--But I do think the solution is to look for more ways to be involved. I think the opportunities are out there, just waiting to be approached right.

QuoteSecondly, the most obvious example of organized rp-pvp rivalry was recently extinguished by the closure of all the Tuluk clans. Closing Tuluk was a good thing, but the game needs a new more tangible rivalry for the plebs to grasp.

I mean, there's a lot of easy to grasp rivalry... Like, say, Oash and Borsail. They don't like each other. Great Merchant Houses and Independent Groups. Maybe they ignore each other, maybe one wants to murder the shit out of the other. Or, you know, the Guild. There's reasons for some people to want to use them, and for other people to want to hate the shit out of them. Zalanthas is a game that is really built around rivalries, and the potential for PCs to pursue those rivalries.

The difference is that now, it's harder to go "oh the entire city should hate these people, because they're the enemy!". Now, you have more complex, conflicting views about any group. You have more opportunities for betrayal. Because heck, maybe Informant Amos would never have betrayed you to those filthy northern scum (all 'Nakki hate them!), but you can't trust that he won't tell House Bwaha about your plans. That could make people more cautious, but it's also making Allanak's political scene more nuianced.

That, and closing Tuluk means you have all the would-be Tuluki players instead playing PCs in your area, plotting in subtler ways.  :-*

Quote[...] The unimportant people of Zalanthas deserve conflict and rivalry too.

Sometimes I wish staff would get away from their plot fascinations having to be these big epic affairs with mindbenders, magick, templars and dragons. A 'plot' as simple as two tribes competing over the same watering hole, or two merchant houses competing over the same caravan road or for exclusive privileges with some outpost or city would be infinitely more interesting as a change of pace. Either conflict might start small but could rapidly grow to affect many others, such as the Byn deciding whose contract to accept.

This could already be happening. But if Tim Tribal's people are fighting over a watering hole, Greg Grebber won't have any idea. Nor will Bill Bynner, because why would Tim Tribal involve the Byn? If the Merchant Houses were fighting over a trade route, Tim Tribal and Greg Grebber both might not have reasons to know. Sure, maybe Bill Bynner would know. Or maybe Merchant Moolah is just going to hire the local Guild Assassin to kill the shit out of Agent Amos. If it's the latter, then your common day person isn't going to see it.

I guess what I'm saying here is, there's a lot of different plots out there. But the more irrelevant you are to people, the more irrelevant you are to their plots. If people have a reason to involve you, if you give them a reason to involve you, then you'll see them. But if it doesn't make IC sense to tell Greg Grebber, they're not going to tell the grebber nobody.

I think your expectations are just unrealistic, sorry to say.  What you're asking for has proven time and again to be quite a bit more dull than the alternative, which is layered plotting.  What you want is the Copper Wars, which was what?  A two week affair of bloody conflict?  Then it's over.  And you're writing out these long-winded diatribes about clans and inter-clan conflict, but this is what you're asking for.  Outright, bloody conflict.  It is not sustainable, and frankly, if that's all there ever was, cyclical tactless conflict?  I'd be so bored.  I can't speak for the rest of the playerbase, but without the intrigue, I think I'd just go play a graphical PVP game, because combat on Arm is a joke.

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:12:33 PM
I think your expectations are just unrealistic, sorry to say.  What you're asking for has proven time and again to be quite a bit more dull than the alternative, which is layered plotting.  What you want is the Copper Wars, which was what?  A two week affair of bloody conflict?  Then it's over.  And you're writing out these long-winded diatribes about clans and inter-clan conflict, but this is what you're asking for.  Outright, bloody conflict.  It is not sustainable, and frankly, if that's all there ever was, cyclical tactless conflict?  I'd be so bored.  I can't speak for the rest of the playerbase, but without the intrigue, I think I'd just go play a graphical PVP game, because combat on Arm is a joke.

My expectations are unrealistic? Okaaaaay...It's completely unrealistic to expect that the game hearkens back to how it used to be for a decade-plus. I don't want a continuous Copper War. But you seem unable to separate the two-week climax of the Copper War, with the fact that, for many RL years, numerous antagonistic clans existed that don't anymore. Like, say, Tuluk and all of its factions, not to mention quite a few tribes and races.

It's not unrealistic to want some semblance of that back.

Your whole post just struck me as a completely exaggerated joke. You're not reading what I'm writing, you're just jumping to the most zany conclusions. Nothing that I have suggested is unrealistic. I merely want the game to get back to its roots in a few areas. If that's not a game you'd want to play, then I am surprised you're even still here.

Quote from: Taven on August 18, 2015, 08:35:47 PM
Very long post.

Hey, that's great. I think you jump to a few very idealistic conclusions, but that's fine too. The heart of my assertion stays the same: There should be more PC-focused rp-pvp mundane conflicts and rivalries which are more easily understood and tangibly relevant to more of the population. An example might be the Allanak vs Tuluk rivalry. Now that the organized PC-focused Allanak vs Tuluk rivalry is no more, it should be replaced with something.

Secondly, current rivalries could stand to be a little less obtuse and a little less subtle. Not hugely, or taken to some ridiculously kismetic-esque straw man degree. But something tangible to more than just a couple opposing clan's core leadership and spymasters. The current kaleidoscope of clans in the 'South' resemble NATO more than anything else...even if countries within NATO do have occasional small scale disagreements or tensions.

Most of what people mistake for 'conflict' going around lately, is PCs reacting to NPCs and vice versa. And hey, that's great. This MUD has a superb staff who are great at bringing NPCs to life and having there be consequences in the game world. But currently the game is sorely lacking in 'meaty' player vs player antagonism, beyond some wink-wink/cloak-and-dagger stuff in Allanak. This is a departure from Armageddon's historical predispositions.

Lol, now I will just clown on you, man.  When has the conflict between Tuluk and Allanak EVER been interesting for more than a few weeks, tops?

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:32:04 PM
Lol, now I will just clown on you, man.  When has the conflict between Tuluk and Allanak EVER been interesting for more than a few weeks, tops?

Nice trolling.

The War was a massive pain in the ass and encouraged more derptitude than good PVP. Its best bits were non-PVP focused or actually PvE.

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 18, 2015, 09:37:26 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:32:04 PM
Lol, now I will just clown on you, man.  When has the conflict between Tuluk and Allanak EVER been interesting for more than a few weeks, tops?

Nice trolling.

I'm sorry, was I trolling?  Let's harken back to those days of yore, where enemy militia was allowed to be in the same room as a sorcerer king.  All them conflicts, man.    ;D

Instead of using this tired straw man blah blah, why don't you frame your perfect Armageddon in a concise manner so that we might know what you're talking about.  :)

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 18, 2015, 09:39:26 PM
The War was a massive pain in the ass and encouraged more derptitude than good PVP. Its best bits were non-PVP focused or actually PvE.

In my experience, the best parts of the Allanak vs Tuluk conflict actually happened between the wars. But the point is, it existed, and it brought something to the game that is currently lacking.

Allanak vs Tuluk is only one example as well. Another example is the Pah, where over time, a large number of competing tribes have essentially been reduced to a Sun Runner hegemony, with what would ICly be their main rivals, the Gith and the Blackwing, complete non-factors.

I'd like to see some of the energy and creativity that goes into giving various NPC politicians and factions in Allanak a voice...just a smidgen of it siphoned off to give the very powerful NPC factions in the Tablelands the occasional say in what goes on around them.

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:44:05 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 18, 2015, 09:37:26 PM

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:32:04 PM
Lol, now I will just clown on you, man.  When has the conflict between Tuluk and Allanak EVER been interesting for more than a few weeks, tops?

Nice trolling.

I'm sorry, was I trolling?  Let's harken back to those days of yore, where enemy militia was allowed to be in the same room as a sorcerer king.  All them conflicts, man.    ;D

Instead of using this tired straw man blah blah, why don't you frame your perfect Armageddon in a concise manner so that we might know what you're talking about.  :)

More trolling. Nice. You have no idea how happy it makes me to see someone that disagrees with me acting the way you are now. 8)

Deliberately misinterpreting someone's statements, such as assuming I was referring back to like 1998, instead of say, only a couple years ago, is also a form of trolling.

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 18, 2015, 09:44:36 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 18, 2015, 09:39:26 PM
The War was a massive pain in the ass and encouraged more derptitude than good PVP. Its best bits were non-PVP focused or actually PvE.

In my experience, the best parts of the Allanak vs Tuluk conflict actually happened between the wars. But the point is, it existed, and it brought something to the game that is currently lacking.

Allanak vs Tuluk is only one example as well. Another example is the Pah, where over time, a large number of competing tribes have essentially been reduced to a Sun Runner hegemony, with what would ICly be their main rivals, the Gith and the Blackwing, complete non-factors.

I'd like to see some of the energy and creativity that goes into giving various NPC politicians and factions in Allanak a voice...just a smidgen of it siphoned off to give the very powerful NPC factions in the Tablelands the occasional say in what goes on around them.

The Blackwing should either get their own voice, or go the way of the gypsies and be replaced by a faction/tribe that current staff can stomach.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that things are the way you think they are in regards to the tribal situation but you are about six hundred percent incorrect.

Quote from: Mordiggian on August 18, 2015, 09:49:48 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 18, 2015, 09:44:36 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 18, 2015, 09:39:26 PM
The War was a massive pain in the ass and encouraged more derptitude than good PVP. Its best bits were non-PVP focused or actually PvE.

In my experience, the best parts of the Allanak vs Tuluk conflict actually happened between the wars. But the point is, it existed, and it brought something to the game that is currently lacking.

Allanak vs Tuluk is only one example as well. Another example is the Pah, where over time, a large number of competing tribes have essentially been reduced to a Sun Runner hegemony, with what would ICly be their main rivals, the Gith and the Blackwing, complete non-factors.

I'd like to see some of the energy and creativity that goes into giving various NPC politicians and factions in Allanak a voice...just a smidgen of it siphoned off to give the very powerful NPC factions in the Tablelands the occasional say in what goes on around them.

The Blackwing should either get their own voice, or go the way of the gypsies and be replaced by a faction/tribe that current staff can stomach.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that things are the way you think they are in regards to the tribal situation but you are about six hundred percent incorrect.

Great! I'm looking forward to someday seeing the evidence of my being incorrect in-game.

Clearsighted, dude, I just don't care enough to sit there and write a fucking dossier for you.  Argue with Taven, she likes writing essays on the GDB ( <3 ).  The intent of the OP was to scare up some people to murder, corrupt and betray each other.  That shit is in full swing, ask anybody who's actually playing the game in a regular sense (and not playing in Morin's).  But hey, if you feel better about life because some asshole on the internet is trolling you, you're welcome.  Glad to be there.  :)

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:12:33 PM
I think your expectations are just unrealistic, sorry to say.  What you're asking for has proven time and again to be quite a bit more dull than the alternative, which is layered plotting.  What you want is the Copper Wars, which was what?  A two week affair of bloody conflict?  Then it's over.  And you're writing out these long-winded diatribes about clans and inter-clan conflict, but this is what you're asking for.  Outright, bloody conflict.  It is not sustainable, and frankly, if that's all there ever was, cyclical tactless conflict?  I'd be so bored.  I can't speak for the rest of the playerbase, but without the intrigue, I think I'd just go play a graphical PVP game, because combat on Arm is a joke.

Rather than have this thread get locked, maybe it might be better to focus on the Copper Wars situation.  I skipped the (poorly named, they should have been a Skirmish) Copper Wars because that sort of role play didn't interest me.  Didn't people in general have a good time with the Copper Skirmish?  Wasn't that a high water mark of sorts?

The key advantages of this time were the semi-open recruitment.  People could simply create characters and then you were suddenly involved in military operations.  Is this a lot of work to organize?  Sure, probably.  Maybe it's something the staff don't care to maintain full time.  But certainly having a smaller scale, carefully tuned set of Skirmishes would be great for the sort of people who like that sort of thing?  Maybe once per (real life) quarter?

EDIT:  More edits to come.

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 18, 2015, 09:28:25 PMHey, that's great. I think you jump to a few very idealistic conclusions, but that's fine too. The heart of my assertion stays the same: should be more PC-focused rp-pvp mundane conflicts and rivalries which are more easily understood and tangibly relevant to more of the population. An example might be the Allanak vs Tuluk rivalry. Now that the organized PC-focused Allanak vs Tuluk rivalry is no more, it should be replaced with something.

I guess I just really don't understand what you want. I've been reading, I swear! But you seem to want:

1. Massive organized PvP
2. Small-scale plots that nobody PCs (Tim Tribal, Bill Bynner, and Greg Grebber) can be aware of and involved in
3. Plots that don't involve mindbenders, magic, templars, and dragons
4. Rivalries which are less "obtuse" and less "subtle"

I don't understand how you can have #1 without having #3. If Allanak is in a war, it's going to have templars and magic. It may have mindbenders and dragons. There's really no avoiding that. Also, #1 doesn't seem to match with #2. A massive organized PvP is not something small scale. Also, I'm really not sure what #4 means, as it seems to contradict. To me, obtuse says big, bulky, assumed and postured. Way over the top, right? But to be subtle is just the opposite. When you say that, it says to me that things aren't bold enough, that you can't tell anything is happening.

So... I guess I could just use some explanation of what it is that you're really after.

QuoteMost of what people mistake for 'conflict' going around lately, is PCs reacting to NPCs and vice versa. And hey, that's great. This MUD has a superb staff who are great at bringing NPCs to life and having there be consequences in the game world. But currently the game is sorely lacking in 'meaty' player vs player antagonism, beyond some wink-wink/cloak-and-dagger stuff in Allanak. This is a departure from Armageddon's historical predispositions.

I think you're way too resentful of stuff happening behind the scenes. I agree with Kismetic--Generally, large scale PvP conflict ends in a lot of sudden death. I don't believe it's really that satisfying. Even in the recent Allanaki-Tuluk conflict, the most interesting things happened behind the scenes, and weren't approachable to most of your run of the mill PCs.

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:54:19 PMThe intent of the OP was to scare up some people to murder, corrupt and betray each other.  That shit is in full swing, ask anybody who's actually playing the game in a regular sense (and not playing in Morin's).

I can guarantee you, Clearsighted, he's right. Allanak has a lot of MCB going on, and it's player-on-player. If you're not seeing it, that's because there's not really a reason for you to, or you don't have the connections to (see my previous post for a more long-winded explanation). Likewise, I agree with Mordiggity. The tribal scene is hopping as well, and rife for MCB. Does Storm have MCB going on? It sure has the potential to, if it doesn't already. Morin's, who can say about the MCB? It's not really intended to be a player hub, as evidenced by the lack of clans or living space. I'm sure MCB still happens in the scrub anyways, though. You have the Akei Ta Var out there, and who doesn't love grassland elf betrayal?

I guess what I'm saying is, there's a lot of plot stuff happening. And it's plot stuff at a lot of different levels, for different people. The thing is, to be involved in plots, you have to have a reason for people to involve you. Long-term in-your-face plots aren't really very viable, and if they happen all the time, they get old fast, in my opinion.

Quote from: Kismetic on August 18, 2015, 09:54:19 PMArgue with Taven, she likes writing essays on the GDB ( <3 ).

See, I'm a source for MCB too! Who is this commoner, WRITING things!? Why are they here? Since when are they allowed to post serious things anyhow?!  :D

Quote from: Taven on August 18, 2015, 11:05:34 PM

Quote from: Clearsighted on August 18, 2015, 09:28:25 PMHey, that's great. I think you jump to a few very idealistic conclusions, but that's fine too. The heart of my assertion stays the same: should be more PC-focused rp-pvp mundane conflicts and rivalries which are more easily understood and tangibly relevant to more of the population. An example might be the Allanak vs Tuluk rivalry. Now that the organized PC-focused Allanak vs Tuluk rivalry is no more, it should be replaced with something.

I guess I just really don't understand what you want. I've been reading, I swear! But you seem to want:

1. Massive organized PvP
2. Small-scale plots that nobody PCs (Tim Tribal, Bill Bynner, and Greg Grebber) can be aware of and involved in
3. Plots that don't involve mindbenders, magic, templars, and dragons
4. Rivalries which are less "obtuse" and less "subtle"

Remove #1, and you've mostly got it. That leave us with:

1. Small-scale plots that nobody PCs (Tim Tribal, Bill Bynner, and Greg Grebber) can be aware of and involved in
2. Plots that don't involve mindbenders, magic, templars, and dragons
3. Rivalries which are less "obtuse" and less "subtle"

Sounds pretty good to me!

Massive organized pvp is just one example of what happens when clans have institutional rivalries. It's an exceptional situation, and in this case, such as the copper war, developed from myriad Southern organizations being in a war against myriad Northern organizations.

I'm not saying the game needs something like that, on that kind of scale. I wouldn't be averse to it happening every couple RL years, but that's not what I'm seeking.

But it could use more relevant and tangible reasons for clans/tribes to have more everyday friction with each other.

Personally, I think staff is already moving in this direction, and I think the majority of staff want this too. But I don't think we're there yet.

As a side note? I already said that a few clans in Allanak were in a good place, which staff could be justifiably proud of.

All of this kismetic stuff about large-scale pvp, or going to a graphic mmo if that's what I want, is just trolling straw man arguments, which have little if anything to do with what I'm after. Which is simply to introduce a bit more tension into the world, that is more overt and less subtle/behind the scenes. And again? I think staff are already moving in that direction. It's still true that they're better at doing big epic stuff with NPCs than setting up mundane frictions between PCs.

It is safe to assume that unless all of these clans are confiding in your PC their behind-the-curtain shenanigans, you don't know the extent to which they are murdering, corrupting, and betraying!

Quote from: Mordiggian on August 18, 2015, 11:33:45 PM
It is safe to assume that unless all of these clans are confiding in your PC their behind-the-curtain shenanigans, you don't know the extent to which they are murdering, corrupting, and betraying!

Right.

1. Small-scale plots that nobody PCs (Tim Tribal, Bill Bynner, and Greg Grebber) can be aware of and involved in
2. Plots that don't involve mindbenders, magic, templars, and dragons
3. Rivalries which are less "obtuse" and less "subtle"

I think a lot of exciting and interesting things are going on, but they're so restrictive, that to the vast majority of the playerbase, their causes and consequences are largely irrelevant. I think staff does a great job at the cloak-and-dagger, mastermind/conspiracy level of intrigue. I'd like to see more 'grass roots' plots.

I guess that's the last I'll post on this subject.

I think another way to phrase what Clearsighted is trying to say is:

If a tree falls in the forest, but 80% of the playerbase doesn't see or hear of it, does it really matter?

That said, cloak and dagger secretive plots have their place and are a ton of fun. I don't think the two ideas are mutually exclusive.

You either have to accept that you're not important enough to see any of the conflict going on, or make yourself important enough. I don't do the latter, so I stick with the former. Armageddon is a PVE MUD to me, and that's probably all it ever will be. I'm glad there's other people who can get more out of it, though.

If Tim Tribal is planning to fuck over Bill Bynner and Bill Bynner is plotting to backstab Greg Grebber for cutting in on his job market, and none of them tell you about it, does that mean it's not happening?

@Clearsighted I'm not sure what you want here. Because you've dismissed certain pursuits in the past as 'pretend' (in a roleplaying game where we are all pretending) and the vibe I get is that you want things to happen that are either already happening (but not involving your particular PC) or can totally happen if somebody actually pursues it? You've given examples of things in the past that you would like to see, and they were all things PCs are entirely welcome to pursue, or even things that were/are happening.

If you feel like your ability to be involved in things you find interesting is limited by role of your current PC... maybe change things up? Play a different PC? Work with your clan mates or clan staff to come up with something?

Despite the mention of a High Templar, this bit from the chronology page is about a plot that was dreamed up entirely by PCs. PCs communicated their goals to staff. PCs communicated what they were doing to accomplish these goals. PCs communicated what they thought that might need (ICly and OOCly). PCs dealt with a lot of IC adversity both from the game world and other PCs. And then PCs went out and kicked ass. I would go as far as saying most active PCs in Tuluk participated in some fashion. Just as likely, there were probably a few people who had no clue what was going on, because not every PC is going to be involved in every thing.

Quote
1641 (Year 24 Age 22)
Unaffiliated southern refugees are rounded up from various slums in Tuluk by the Legions. Several weeks after the first disappearances, a force led by High Templar Jurinia Winrothol takes a force of listless figures masked by burlap sacks to the northern gates of Ten'Sarak, along with regular soldiers of His Legions, including the Sun's Furies, and various Faithful. After a short siege, the Tuluki forces break through the northern gate and systematically slaughter the remaining southern troops in the encampment before setting it ablaze. Tuluk abandons the razed camp and claims victory over Allanak.

Quote from: Mordiggian on August 19, 2015, 12:23:53 AM
If Tim Tribal is planning to fuck over Bill Bynner and Bill Bynner is plotting to backstab Greg Grebber for cutting in on his job market, and none of them tell you about it, does that mean it's not happening?

@Clearsighted I'm not sure what you want here. Because you've dismissed certain pursuits in the past as 'pretend' (in a roleplaying game where we are all pretending) and the vibe I get is that you want things to happen that are either already happening (but not involving your particular PC) or can totally happen if somebody actually pursues it? You've given examples of things in the past that you would like to see, and they were all things PCs are entirely welcome to pursue, or even things that were/are happening.

If you feel like your ability to be involved in things you find interesting is limited by role of your current PC... maybe change things up? Play a different PC? Work with your clan mates or clan staff to come up with something?

Despite the mention of a High Templar, this bit from the chronology page is about a plot that was dreamed up entirely by PCs. PCs communicated their goals to staff. PCs communicated what they were doing to accomplish these goals. PCs communicated what they thought that might need (ICly and OOCly). PCs dealt with a lot of IC adversity both from the game world and other PCs. And then PCs went out and kicked ass. I would go as far as saying most active PCs in Tuluk participated in some fashion. Just as likely, there were probably a few people who had no clue what was going on, because not every PC is going to be involved in every thing.

Quote
1641 (Year 24 Age 22)
Unaffiliated southern refugees are rounded up from various slums in Tuluk by the Legions. Several weeks after the first disappearances, a force led by High Templar Jurinia Winrothol takes a force of listless figures masked by burlap sacks to the northern gates of Ten'Sarak, along with regular soldiers of His Legions, including the Sun's Furies, and various Faithful. After a short siege, the Tuluki forces break through the northern gate and systematically slaughter the remaining southern troops in the encampment before setting it ablaze. Tuluk abandons the razed camp and claims victory over Allanak.

As I've said before. Most things are fine. Most things are getting better. I'm happy with the current direction of the game. I know that concerns which were valid six months or six years ago, are no longer valid, and might even have been seen to without even having the chance to find out about it yet.

I don't think it's wrong to draw attention to the fact that the game tends to focus more on secretive/subtle/conspiracy plots at the higher echelons and has, historically, had less in the way of 'grass roots' conflicts. I don't think it's wrong to wish it was balanced a bit more to the lower scale, mundane end of things.

Perhaps some people disagree. That's fine. But I don't think my opinion is either extraordinary or unrealistic. I'm generally content, because I think the game is moving in that direction regardless. Like it did with Tuluk, even though, before Tuluk closed, there were big threads about how it would never happen.

EDIT: For the record? Most things I post have virtually nothing to do with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction I have with my current role. It's just based on years of observations. I'm loving my current role, even if there's a lot of other stuff I'd like to do too.

n/m, futile

I'm not saying that cloak and dagger plots are bad. I'm saying that I agree that there have been missed opportunities to involve the playerbase more.

Let's use the... volcano relocation, as an example. Players were revved up for a battle. Finally, some knock down, drag out PVP!

What happened: I was flat-out told via staff send not to use tactics which made perfect IC sense because it was "not time yet", i.e. it was getting in the way of arranging PCs where staff wanted them to be. Guys, it's a battle, if you can delay an army as you have been in-character ordered to do, you should be allowed to delay the army in-character.

What could have happened: the unit that was sent to delay the army with guerrilla tactics could have actually been allowed to do that.

What happened: We were arranged on a battlefield, the fight that did break out was stopped, and we were treated to a spectator show that we were not really involved in at all. The landscape was rendered largely irrelevant to plots of a mundane nature from that point forward. The Tan Muark village was completely destroyed off-screen.

What could have happened: the PCs from one side marched on Tyn Dashra and participated in the slaughter and sacking of the village, while the other army comes in to try and scoop up the territory for themselves. Fights break out long-term over the territory, each city trying to claim its verdant plains for themselves. One city starts to win, the other starts to lose. Either way, the volcano starts to go dormant outside of Allanak. Part of its cliffs crumble, opening more pathways around and through it. Another one starts to bubble up in the heart of the ridges around Tyn Dashra. Eventually Tyn Dashra has a full-fledged volcano and part of the ridges are destroyed, but grass fires have destroyed most of the greenery, though the landscape itself is otherwise largely unchanged. The cities lose interest in fighting over the territory but the area is destroyed by the fighting and the volcano. A lot less building work too!

That's just one idea and one example. My point is that the second options would have allowed players to more fully affect events and participate in them. The way it went down not only involved an immense amount of building and unnecessarily removed several very cool areas from the game, it didn't even give the Muark a chance of participating in fighting for their own survival nor did it gives PCs on the other side the satisfaction of doing something once in a lifetime - destroying and sacking a village, in character. How brutal would that have been?

So... yes, the plots going on are cool. Yes, I'm sure I have no idea what most or any of them are. But there is always room for improvement and to consider how you can involve a wider range of players. Whatever OOC goals you have for the game, they should include giving players as big of a slice of the fun pie as you can.

edit: for clarification and typos.

Delerium, the battle of The Dashra is probably one of the worst plots to complain about. If memory serves we had somewhere around 170 players on at that one moment in time for the first major hRPT in five years. There was no way in hell staff could allow every single player to make grandstanding decisions about the overall plot of that one "high echelons" plot, it needed a bit of railroading.

As for Clearsighted's complaints? I'm not sure what he's asking myself? He wants plots that small people can get into, but its like he hasn't been playing for the last five years. Yes, you aren't going to just get random plots thrown in your lap. Yes, you do normally need to make friends to get involved in plots.

But seriously, it takes about two seconds before you see player created clans trying to hire every person alive to peruse their grand plot of starting a merchant house. It takes about two minutes in Red Storm before you come across three escaped muls seeking Borsail vengeance and ten rogue 'gickers helping them. It's not hard to see plots on the small scale.

All I know is if you would all just step back and let me run all of the plots, I would do it a lot better.

Deal with it.

My ideal Armageddon:

who

There are currently 0 players in the world other than yourself.

think Yes, yes...finally. It's my playground now bitches.

Hi,

One thing I think Clearsighted is on about is the idea of staff-driven bottom-up trivial plots (I could be totally wrong!)  I could also be wrong about how neat these are, but I do think these are neat.  The world can seem pretty static up until you reach a level in a clan where you get included in some of the secret plots.  (There's also the issue of summer slowdown that might motivate some of the discussion above, but I can assure you there aren't ten rogue gicks or three muls sitting in Red Storm, bcw.)  

Let me give two examples:

1. My rinther once stumbled on a scroll with writing on it on the body pile.  I don't know if this was a staff thing or what, but it sure did generate a lot of plots and RP among my gangbangin' buds, even if nothing came of it.

2. My Salarr once had a kankfly talk to it.  (This I now realize was a mistake.)  But again, this little event to my nobody PC generated a lot of scenes and some plots, even if it wasn't connected with a meaningful over-arching narrative.

Such events don't need to have a grand narrative behind them (although that's what my PCs assumed) - they just offer a way to break up the monotony of the static world a bit, and generate some fun for nobody PCs.

Quote from: bcw81 on August 19, 2015, 11:00:04 AM
Delerium, the battle of The Dashra is probably one of the worst plots to complain about. If memory serves we had somewhere around 170 players on at that one moment in time for the first major hRPT in five years. There was no way in hell staff could allow every single player to make grandstanding decisions about the overall plot of that one "high echelons" plot, it needed a bit of railroading.

As for Clearsighted's complaints? I'm not sure what he's asking myself? He wants plots that small people can get into, but its like he hasn't been playing for the last five years. Yes, you aren't going to just get random plots thrown in your lap. Yes, you do normally need to make friends to get involved in plots.

But seriously, it takes about two seconds before you see player created clans trying to hire every person alive to peruse their grand plot of starting a merchant house. It takes about two minutes in Red Storm before you come across three escaped muls seeking Borsail vengeance and ten rogue 'gickers helping them. It's not hard to see plots on the small scale.

1) I don't think Delirium is talking about getting allowed to make big 'grandstanding' decisions that brings the mud to a halt for ~170 people. Just rolling out and conducting some hit and runs on PCs milling about. I wasn't playing then, so I can't know for sure, but I don't think it would have required staff intervention and assistance on a grand scale to go sneak, hide and take some arrow potshots at the opposing force. I could be wrong. I don't think 'grandstanding' is the right word for someone just trying to do their IC job in a logical fashion, either.

2) I don't think it's entirely fair to call what I've posted a 'complaint'. Why can't it just be a conversation, or a debate? Perhaps even an argument. If it were a 'complaint', I'd take it to the request tool. In my own opinion, it's more of an 'observation' that clans could use more friction and more rivalries that aren't of the highly secretive/discreet variety.

3) Once again. It has nothing to do with whatever character I'm playing, or however many friends I have. I just believe there has to be a median somewhere between the 'Da Vinci Code' level plots on one hand, and the meaningless monster of the week plots on the other. Just something simple and mundane, like competition over a watering hole, scarce resource, caravan route, trading privileges, etc. I'm thinking more skirmishes, patrols, the occasional raid or counter-raid. Not the Copper War.

This particular observation is focused mostly on institutional rivalries between established clans and tribes operating mostly outside the Gaj. Not so much random indies in Red Storm 'being the change'. But the geopolitical landscape of the game, and how it doesn't always have to revolve around something supernaturally epic to be exciting or interesting.

Quote from: bcw81 on August 19, 2015, 11:00:04 AM
Delerium, the battle of The Dashra is probably one of the worst plots to complain about. If memory serves we had somewhere around 170 players on at that one moment in time for the first major hRPT in five years.

That many players is all the more reason to break it up into several smaller engagements over the course of a few weeks. I'm puzzled by your attitude. Allowing players to participate in the action is a far cry from 'every player makes grandstanding decisions.'

I think most of us agree the Battle of Tyn Dashra HRPT could have been done differently with some better results.

There were some major differences between the last HRPT and the copper wars.

One of the highlights of the copper war was the fact that two enemy camps were in rather close proximity to each other. This did kinda allowed for some exciting patrols and skirmishes before some more memorable showdowns. The last HRPT had none of this and from the tuluki side there were some pretty defined borders we were told we shouldn't cross, and I think it was the same for the allanak side.  Unfortunately, we needed those restrcitions since the small scale skirmishes people wanted was really something that was impossible to actually do in the last HRPT given the distribution of playerbase.

During the HRPT we only had about three recruits in the legion and three officers (one traitor in that), and maybe two good rangers in the entire city at the time. One of those good ranger was tasked with scouting near the enemy camp and never returned. Tuluk just did not have the numbers to deal with allanaki players and more specifically the mage players. It only took one whiran to practically bring tuluk down on its knees and decimate an entire clan just a few months before, though luckily by 'sheer coincidence' the staff decided to raise the karma level of whirans.   :-*

I think people forget how one sided things felt during the copper war when one side had mages coming out of their asses, mages who will group and buff each other. Not to mention the copper wars was a time where people complained that if you saw their mage and did something other then piss your pants and do everything they said, you were a twink. Sometimes for good reason, since it was an invisible 5 day old rukkian that killed my 35 day old assassin without any effort. Sure now we have barrier and other quality of life changes, but it doesn't change the fact alot of people here cannot control themselves, and who do and will roll mage after mage (or maxed out mage, 0.5 day ranger, maxxed out mage, maxxed out mage)  training them without effort and practically make things unplayable for one side.  

The last HRPT scripted senerio was probably the best option given the player base on each side. Unless Tuluk had  desert elves like soh on their side to balanace out the lack of mages, it would have just been a slaughter.  I do think the idea of skirmishes between player houses/clans or organizations would be nice to see someday, but in order for it to work there needs to be more restriction on mages . Something like making them part of the three per year special app total or something, anything to keep certain people from rolling them over and over during these events.   If not that the game will just need to stop getting them involved in these events in a combat capacity.

Assuming of course you can balance out the mundanes on each side, because there were a heck of a lot of brown and black cloaked figures on the allanak side.

That's pretty funny considering one of the strings of BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP during the brief battle was nearly the entire cadre of mages dying all at once.

Tuluk also did have defenses against mages.. they were VERY apparent during that latest HRPT, though maybe not to anyone but the mages.

Also.. during the Copper War... Allanak got roflstomped.

So.

Try again? Heh.

Gosh, it's almost like the 20 year old codebase of this roleplaying MUD with a handful of volunteer coders isn't equipped to handle mass combat.

Tuluki favoritism is pretty apparent if you read between the lines of the War RPTs on the chronology page (or just attend one). It's difficult to compete against armies of kungfu sponsored roles backed up with ranks of twinked out rangers and warriors.

Of course it's all a moot point now since Tuluk is teh closed nyah nyah nyah

Interestingly, having talked to players who fought on both sides of the wars, everyone tends to think that they got screwed one way or another. Except during the Copper War - the Tuluki vets seem to feel they rightly won that one.

Wait, what was this thread about again?

Oh, oh, oh, I know! Killing each other!

Sometimes I miss the days of the Halaster HRPTs. I think we can find a happy middle ground, especially if we look at ways to split the action up into smaller chunks.

Quote from: Delirium on August 19, 2015, 01:05:57 PM
That's pretty funny considering one of the strings of BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP during the brief battle was nearly the entire cadre of mages dying all at once.

Tuluk also did have defenses against mages.. they were VERY apparent during that latest HRPT, though maybe not to anyone but the mages.

Also.. during the Copper War... Allanak got roflstomped.

So.

Try again? Heh.

I think you are confusing the staff chosen narrative to what would have actually happened code-wise if a few couple day old mundanes faced off serveral mages+mundanes. By the way, in the copper war, tuluk barely held their own, pulling out with as much of the copper vien as they could take before allanak rushed in. Not much of a roflstomp if you ask me.

One of the things I do regret about Tuluk closing is that my Templar will not be able to coordinate with his partner on the other side of Luir's, arranging skirmishes between their units for their own mutual glorification.

Quote from: Dresan on August 19, 2015, 01:17:47 PM

Quote from: Delirium on August 19, 2015, 01:05:57 PM
That's pretty funny considering one of the strings of BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP during the brief battle was nearly the entire cadre of mages dying all at once.

Tuluk also did have defenses against mages.. they were VERY apparent during that latest HRPT, though maybe not to anyone but the mages.

Also.. during the Copper War... Allanak got roflstomped.

So.

Try again? Heh.

I think you are confusing the staff chosen narrative to what would have actually happened code-wise if a few couple day old mundanes faced off serveral mages+mundanes. By the way, in the copper war, tuluk barely held their own, before pulling out with as much of the copper vien as they could take before allanak rushed in. Not much of a roflstomp if you ask me.

That would be the staff-chosen narrative of the Copper War... Allanak kept losing Blue Robes at an alarming rate due to unit NPC tactics.

Either way, that's semantics and players don't have the full picture.

The issue itself is something where we're actually agreeing with each other. Breaking the battle up into smaller chunks and giving mages specific, important tasks to complete would help accomplish what both of us want; giving the smallfry PCs a chance to participate without getting completely steamrolled by the big boys. Either way, I'd rather die due to PvP or in a battle than to storage boredom or tarantula #948. We all die, the best we can hope for is to die in a meaningful or at least interesting way. This is not a game you win.

I think "meaningful deaths" are against the Armageddon TOS.

You could probably fix that by putting a cap on the number of PCs that can by in a room at any given time.

Like, if you know there's gonna be 100 PCs crammed asshole to elbow in Tyn Dashra, maaaaybe cap the room at like.. 15.

I'd rather have a limit on how many (N)PCs can engage a given target, with warriors having a bonus when defending against higher numbers. Or have slightly more formalized PVP where opponents sought each other out and put a bit of RP in there, and didn't simply assist train each other.

We had a whole thread on this after the HRPT.

I should have MCBed those stupid spies at the end of the HRPT. Or at least done it at their party afterward. Ah well, missed opportunities.

Quote from: Dresan on August 19, 2015, 01:01:12 PM
I think people forget how one sided things felt during the copper war when one side had mages coming out of their asses, mages who will group and buff each other.

I think you're forgetting how any mage entering battle was common slaughtered by 'order unit kill <x>', followed by 'A unit of half-giant soldiers chops <x> for lethal damage'. And how the Allanaki camp was left open, with the mages made to camp outside, prey to arrows, while the Tuluki sat behind their gates of impregnability which even a fire elemental couldn't bring down.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 19, 2015, 01:33:24 PM
I'd rather have a limit on how many (N)PCs can engage a given target, with warriors having a bonus when defending against higher numbers. Or have slightly more formalized PVP where opponents sought each other out and put a bit of RP in there, and didn't simply assist train each other.

We had a whole thread on this after the HRPT.

Well, I was responding to the whole "battle into smaller chunks" comment by Delirium - your idea is more of a fix for combat in general.

Quote from: manonfire on August 19, 2015, 01:07:00 PM
Gosh, it's almost like the 20 year old codebase of this roleplaying MUD with a handful of volunteer coders isn't equipped to handle mass combat.

Yeah, honestly... Yeah.

And I'd go one step further and say that even the skirmishes people are talking about wouldn't have consistently worked well with the way the game is set up overall, and not just the code base. I mean you have to hope that your skirmishers all log on at the same time, that they're balanced enough that it's not just a complete slaughter, that they actually meet each other, that the RPT can handle the loss of players if it /is/ a complete slaughter.

I think people would have been better off going into the RPT as if it were an dark and gritty reboot of a MASH episode rather than an actual war. That's really where the big war had a chance to shine with the current gameplay mechanics (and I don't just mean the code, I mean the overarching nature of a voluntary RPG with optional logon times).

When designing sources of conflict, players need to focus a lot on what the game itself can actually handle.

Unrealistic expectations does a bitter player make.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 19, 2015, 01:12:12 PM
Interestingly, having talked to players who fought on both sides of the wars, everyone tends to think that they got screwed one way or another. Except during the Copper War - the Tuluki vets seem to feel they rightly won that one.

You should have seen the posts from annoyed Templar players at the time bellygagging at staff for pulling out of the copper mine before it was depleated "so that Allanak could feel like it won too". It was a good read.

It's oft been stated in the past that the game population really can't handle sustained, open conflict.  It generally takes a significant investment of time and effort to be competent, so open hostility places someone at great risk of losing it all.  Seeing an increase in violence wouldn't be a bad thing, but perhaps the risk could be mitigated by players not making most PvP situations end in death.

Mass combat situations are something I hope to avoid at all costs, from any angle. As the number of combatants increases, the fight ceases to be a life or death struggle and instead turns into something akin to dropping grapes into a food processor.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but anything over two groups of four to five people fighting becomes too spamtastic (to use the technical term) to follow and react to, even more so when something unexpected happens in the middle of it.  So I like the idea of smaller engagements that focus more on the actions of just a handful of people.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 19, 2015, 01:18:13 PM
One of the things I do regret about Tuluk closing is that my Templar will not be able to coordinate with his partner on the other side of Luir's, arranging skirmishes between their units for their own mutual glorification.

I wish that I'd been playing while you were playing a templar a templar, Skeelz. We wouild have had some fun!

Quote from: Taijan on August 19, 2015, 06:12:48 PM
It's oft been stated in the past that the game population really can't handle sustained, open conflict.  It generally takes a significant investment of time and effort to be competent, so open hostility places someone at great risk of losing it all.  Seeing an increase in violence wouldn't be a bad thing, but perhaps the risk could be mitigated by players not making most PvP situations end in death.

Mass combat situations are something I hope to avoid at all costs, from any angle. As the number of combatants increases, the fight ceases to be a life or death struggle and instead turns into something akin to dropping grapes into a food processor.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but anything over two groups of four to five people fighting becomes too spamtastic (to use the technical term) to follow and react to, even more so when something unexpected happens in the middle of it.  So I like the idea of smaller engagements that focus more on the actions of just a handful of people.

I think most people agree that the game doesn't necessarily need another Copper War or Tyn Dashra-level event, except maybe, once every few years. But I think the game can handle and even thrive on skirmish/patrol/raiding level friction and hostility.

Even though I'm not advocating mass combat, it's still relevant to note that Arm's logins have spiked at times of upheaval and war. I think more people quit playing the game, or drift away, from boredom - by an exponential order of magnitude - than drift away from having been killed in pvp.

In fact, if I were to come up with the top 5 reasons that people stop playing Armageddon, (including RL interventions, and OOC drama), I think PK wouldn't even make the list - unless it was PK tainted by OOC drama. Most people are fine with PK that arises from logical in-game situations. In fact, they're far more likely to be okay dying on patrol or while raiding, than from being backstabbed in their apartment by some bored noble's retainer.

During the most recent conflict between Allanak and Tuluk, the one time opposing warbands came across each other, they stared intensely at each other from a few rooms apart and then rode back the way they came. No staff involvement whatsoever.

Quote from: Mordiggian on August 19, 2015, 09:03:32 PM
During the most recent conflict between Allanak and Tuluk, the one time opposing warbands came across each other, they stared intensely at each other from a few rooms apart and then rode back the way they came. No staff involvement whatsoever.

Ironically enough, I bet that staring contest was more exciting and heart-pounding to those involved, in terms of adrenaline, than watching any number of volcanos fall from the sky.

I was semi-present for the last Allanak/Tuluk groups that "came across" each other. I was hoping some hack 'n slash had happened, but that's not always the most interesting course of action. With that being said, plenty of players tried to get things going that were interesting. It's unfortunate that the code is so clumsy with stuff like this.

edit:

I wonder if a "created area" for RPT conflicts between armed forces would be good for event's sake? Kind of like instances in MMOs. I think it might provide staff with more options as to how to involve all the PCs.

Quote from: Is Friday on August 19, 2015, 09:33:44 PM
I was semi-present for the last Allanak/Tuluk groups that "came across" each other. I was hoping some hack 'n slash had happened, but that's not always the most interesting course of action. With that being said, plenty of players tried to get things going that were interesting. It's unfortunate that the code is so clumsy with stuff like this.

edit:

I wonder if a "created area" for RPT conflicts between armed forces would be good for event's sake? Kind of like instances in MMOs. I think it might provide staff with more options as to how to involve all the PCs.

We've certainly discussed things like this recently. We are really limited by our code, but we are trying to come up with more elegant solutions than '20 vs 20 PVP OK GO'.

Quote from: Is Friday on August 19, 2015, 09:33:44 PM
I was semi-present for the last Allanak/Tuluk groups that "came across" each other. I was hoping some hack 'n slash had happened, but that's not always the most interesting course of action. With that being said, plenty of players tried to get things going that were interesting. It's unfortunate that the code is so clumsy with stuff like this.

edit:

I wonder if a "created area" for RPT conflicts between armed forces would be good for event's sake? Kind of like instances in MMOs. I think it might provide staff with more options as to how to involve all the PCs.

I always thought it would be neat to have a way of setting a zone/room to have slower combat. Would be pretty handy in big mass combat events.

Just spitballing, but a solution like this might feel better:


Dusty Plains [NESW]
A bloody skirmish ensues nearby.

> enter skirmish
You enter the skirmish [in a random location ...
  ... but probably closer to a couple of your allies]
A Bloody Skirmish [NESW]
You stand in the midst of a bloody skirmish, generically described.
The tall, muscular man is standing here.
The scarred, muscular man is standing here.

> follow muscular
You now follow the tall, muscular man.

The tall, muscular man walks north.
The scarred, muscular man walks north.
You can't get to the front lines in that direction.
 [only a limited number of PCs per clan are allowed in each room]

> look north
[Very Far]
Nothing.
[Far]
Nothing.
[Near]
The tall, muscular man is here, fighting the stout dwarf.
The scarred, muscular man is here, fighting the stout dwarf.
The stout dwarf is here, fighting the tall, muscular man.

The scarred dwarf has arrived from the east.
The peg-legged dwarf has arrived from the east.

The scarred dwarf charges into you, knocking you over.

The tall, muscular man has arrived from the north.
The tall, muscular man crumples to the ground.


[edit: looks like I don't know how the game looks]

Actualy, that sounds like a pretty sweet idea.  An area where North and South troops constantly spawn and kill each other.  If one side shows up with a band of PCs, they could rolfstomp for a while, but they'd eventuallg have to get out, as the spawning wouldn't ever stop.  I think you'd probably only want the entrance available during times of active war, though.

And you'd probably have to intersperse it with an echo like:
Slaves rush onto the battlefield to drag away the dead.

Then clear house, otherwise the room clutter would be cataclysmic.  But!  Anyone who was fast enough and sneaky enough to get by both sides (since both would be hostile if you weren't codedly in their clan) could slip onto the battlefield, scavenge the dead, and beat a hasty retreat with goods for the black market!  (All the cloaks would probably have to be a new one that was "ravaged" or "tattered" or something, to prevent the instance being used as a too easy source of opposing city camouflage...

Might be kinda fun if it was dangerous enough and was only available during wartime (so it wouldn't become boring and commonplace.)

I think one of the major problems this game has with group combat is that 20+ PC/NPC can attack 1 person at once.The game should limit that to 4-5 (N)PCs max can attack one person, which is a bit more realistic to how many people can surround one person to swing weapons at them. If this were to happen, group fight wouldn't seem like a complete clusterfuck, unless one side completely outnumbered the other. People would have to spread out a bit more when dealing with group vs. group.

The beauty of this is that you could begin adding strategy to encounters. Large groups would effectively need to break down into smaller groups, where one individual (possibly with a shield) attacks first, and all others assist them. In such situations you could also have archers (within the same room) to add to the damage beyond the four/five people limit.   The most organized groups would most likely win. 

Military organizations (militia mostly) who have taken the time to practice these type of drills would probably be best at these encounters. I keep thinking as an added bonus if you join the militia and become life-sworn corporal+ your shield_use skill should probably be raised to master regardless of class to represent the expectation you might be leading groups of soldiers/mercenaries into battle and taking some hits.

The goal should be to provide conflict, but not inherently death.

Death is a very common byproduct of conflict, but any OOC motivations to cause conflict simply by killing people should be curbed and rethought.  Thus, I wouldn't ever want to see someone create a character whose purpose is to kill other characters in order to cause conflict, but to cause conflict through prejudice, racism, class warfare, territorial conquest, expansion, religious or political means and let death happen naturally in its wake.  This is what most people crave, an atmosphere of danger and betrayal.  Imperfections, cracks and rifts that exist through the flawed nature of characters, through effective storytelling and through introducing polarizing events that tend to place portions of the player base at odds.

The more coded power/influence a given organization/person has (e.g. a player-formed clan based out of an apartment vs. a Merchant House compound in a city vs. a templar protected by guards in a city), the easier a time they have manipulating the people around them and the harder someone has of taking that target down. Knocking off the head of some entirely PC-driven group (e.g. Radcheck's Roughneck Raiders) is probably a fairly simple task, whereas assassinating a red-robed templar on the city streets is more difficult.

The smaller and more isolated you are as a source of conflict (e.g. a bully in the rinth, a single raider in the wilderness, a loud mouth at the bar), the easier it is for the world to deal with you and, therefore, the more you benefit from being handled by an experienced player.  New players are often fun because they haven't grown attached to the notion of a long-lived character yet, and so they make foolish choices and allow themselves to flavor the world with mistakes, rashness, impatience, stupidity and willfulness devoid of fear from permadeath.  More experienced players are expecting more from the playing experience, and so they tend to fall into more cautious, calculated, patient and reserved styles of game play that can, after a time, start to make the world feel more stable, safe and easy.

If the world tends to be united by a band of highly-positioned do-gooders, then perhaps it would make sense for someone to spur conflict by creating a flawed character that worms itself into that organization, curries favor with its members, patiently gathers support and resources before quietly usurping control and then positioning that organization to oppose some of its current "allies" for an entirely IC, but conflict-driven, purpose behind that character's motivations.  It requires a lot more patience, planning, and work to achieve, but it's going to be much more effective and interesting a story line than simply attacking people in the wilds to "make it more dangerous".

There are lots of ways to begin introducing conflict into the game; you just need to seek out those cracks (or create them) and then exploit them to start the machine in motion.  It was one of the ways that I used to try and achieve my own goals with my characters.  Find an organization that has coded power and then work at convincing, persuading or intimidating the current management to go along with my vision.  If that leader couldn't be brought in line with my vision, then you find a way to quietly or neatly remove that opposition and groom a replacement who is more accommodating.

Be creative in your conflict.  Murder doesn't have to be the first goal.  Let it be a byproduct of smarter, and more goal-oriented, plans you set in motion.

-LoD

Quote from: LoD on August 25, 2015, 01:41:25 PM
Be creative in your conflict.  Murder doesn't have to be the first goal.  Let it be a byproduct of smarter, and more goal-oriented, plans you set in motion.

This exact thing has been on my mind recently.  I've been tired, and gotten lazy, and have felt disappointed in my own play.

I  clearly don't speak for everyone, but I think  I speak for a few people.  We don't want to kill more people. We're killing our share.

We want the opportunity to feel afraid. We want you to kill us. By all means, kill us creatively, but please come blade in hand (or poisoned keg in hand or whatever creative weapon you can devise) and do us harm.

I haven't killed anyone in months. :(

Admins, you should randomly make a person a full-power sorcerer out of fucking nowhere. Any time. Any place.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 25, 2015, 03:01:28 PM
I haven't killed anyone in months. :(

I think its been four or five years for me.... I need to get right on that.

Jumping in a little late, as usual, but, to my knowledge, I've never Pk'ed anyone.

That's disappointing to me.

It's been two whole weeks since I kill't me a man. And already I'm startin' to get the itch. Problem is, I ain't got nuttin' to scratch... god, I'm hungry... hungry for action... hungry for blood... hell... I'm just plain old hungry...

While very few of my pc's are killers, I've had a few that definitely fell into the 'villian' category, some probably pretty memorable to some people. I'd like to say though, nearly all of my pc's, even the 'good ones' are oppurtunists. That very vulnerable person they bump into might just be an answer to one of their problems.

Quote from: Eurynomos on August 19, 2015, 10:13:17 PM

Quote from: Is Friday on August 19, 2015, 09:33:44 PM
I was semi-present for the last Allanak/Tuluk groups that "came across" each other. I was hoping some hack 'n slash had happened, but that's not always the most interesting course of action. With that being said, plenty of players tried to get things going that were interesting. It's unfortunate that the code is so clumsy with stuff like this.

edit:

I wonder if a "created area" for RPT conflicts between armed forces would be good for event's sake? Kind of like instances in MMOs. I think it might provide staff with more options as to how to involve all the PCs.

We've certainly discussed things like this recently. We are really limited by our code, but we are trying to come up with more elegant solutions than '20 vs 20 PVP OK GO'.

I thought the way SoI handled this was really neat, but it doesn't seem possible in Armageddon's codebase.  Basically, there was a neutral ground in between the two factions, full of small forts and strategic points of interest that you could capture, mainly by engaging NPCs.  Fortify it long enough, and friendly NPCs would populate the base.

Haven (I know, I know) had a similar system where there were points of interest to fight for, and whoever was currently controlling them obtained passive bonuses from them in terms of resource gain.

I think the main thing soldier clans lack is actual military field operations to engage in.  I'd love to see small outposts plugged into the game that could be assaulted by one side or the other -- carry the day, grab the enemy's flag, go back to base, etc., without admin intervention.  I always thought it a little odd that both sides maintain these large standing armies but basically only have one forward operating base each.

Well, if you reason it such that the armies don't exist to fight each other, but to clamp down on the populace of their own city-states, the lack of forward operating and conflict in general makes a lot of sense. Neither Templarate really stands to benefit from destroying the other.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 22, 2015, 04:53:07 PM
Well, if you reason it such that the armies don't exist to fight each other, but to clamp down on the populace of their own city-states, the lack of forward operating and conflict in general makes a lot of sense. Neither Templarate really stands to benefit from destroying the other.

True, but small-scale border scuffles also serves the purposes of the templarates in keeping the populace afraid of an external threat, and more willing to accept the tyranny of their 'protectors,' while keeping actual casualties to their overall forces relatively low.

Also it'd be a lot more fun for players to be able to actively go out on adventures more often, and military adventure is one flavor thereof that people are always keen on, I think.  With only one city currently open, I think it's less threatening to playability and less likely to fully wipe clans.  Gith and mantis and tribal and other neutral outposts could be part of a system like the one mentioned above, too.

I'd love to have forts that periodically get attacked by NPCs. Gith, mantis, and (formerly) kryl all provide ready-made opponents that are a lot more logical choices to fight than the other city.

I would have been completely fine with the entire War consisting solely of PC vs NPC actions, since PVP is just a massive clusterfuck. The recapture of Ten Sarak was a fantastic example of the war done right, when one side had only a single PC representative (RIP you poor bastard).

I'm going to have a hard time giving other players the benefit of a doubt from now on. I was involved with a character that was apped and basically sentenced to die on day one by powerful characters, despite having next to zero connection to whatever the offending incident was.

It was shit, and it makes me think that the playerbase is derpy garbage. That they would rather squash a dozen interesting plot lines. That they would refuse to give the benefit of the doubt to a pc when it was extended to them already. That they would rather durr durr durr kill than try to interact with a pc.

It was so badly done that it makes me reconsider whether this hobby is worth my time.

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 11:51:40 AM
I'm going to have a hard time giving other players the benefit of a doubt from now on. I was involved with a character that was apped and basically sentenced to die on day one by powerful characters, despite having next to zero connection to whatever the offending incident was.

It was shit, and it makes me think that the playerbase is derpy garbage. That they would rather squash a dozen interesting plot lines. That they would refuse to give the benefit of the doubt to a pc when it was extended to them already. That they would rather durr durr durr kill than try to interact with a pc.

It was so badly done that it makes me reconsider whether this hobby is worth my time.

You've gotta become the change man.
Kill the people who do this.
Become the great sorcerer or justice or something.
Or spec app an assassin IDK.
I haven't witnessed anyone get lawl killed yet, for bad reasons atleast, so I don't know.

I always go form the feeling of "I want to make a Krathi and max fire ball and establish my dominance over the wastes"
Then I go to "I want to max assassin stealth and backstab and give everyone a bad day while lawl running from room to room"
Then I realize I don't like any of that really.
(The true path is magic tho)

Yeah, believe it or not. The temptation to just build a revenge pc is strong.

I find thats happened to me a couple times. Templar pulls me in for random "Who the hell are you" chat. Templar gets annoyed by magickers (who, coincidentally, had been annoying them for a couple RL weeks now), decides my PC is the cause of it. Exiles my PC after 30minutes of straight threats of death, nobody in city militia thinks I had anything to do with it. PC can only return home when proof of the magicker being dead is provided, PC was like a RL week old.

At least they didn't kill me, but they may as well have. Died in the Byn a couple weeks later after the stress of being exiled from his home and the hardass nature of the Byn (who were the only ones that would hire him) broke him into two personalities and one got the other killed. =\

Blugh, Tamplers.

Quote from: Riev on October 26, 2015, 12:30:29 PM
I find thats happened to me a couple times. Templar pulls me in for random "Who the hell are you" chat. Templar gets annoyed by magickers (who, coincidentally, had been annoying them for a couple RL weeks now), decides my PC is the cause of it. Exiles my PC after 30minutes of straight threats of death, nobody in city militia thinks I had anything to do with it. PC can only return home when proof of the magicker being dead is provided, PC was like a RL week old.

At least they didn't kill me, but they may as well have. Died in the Byn a couple weeks later after the stress of being exiled from his home and the hardass nature of the Byn (who were the only ones that would hire him) broke him into two personalities and one got the other killed. =\

Blugh, Tamplers.

See if you were a master assassin or Krathi you could have max fireball'd his face.

On another note thats kinda rude tbh, I don't know if that is borderline ooc dickness, it doesn't seem that way, but that kind of sucks.

Ah, poor Amos. He lived and died by the sword died for the lulz.

Quote from: Jihelu on October 26, 2015, 12:38:23 PM
On another note thats kinda rude tbh, I don't know if that is borderline ooc dickness, it doesn't seem that way, but that kind of sucks.

I don't understand.

OOCly dickness would be making a revenge PC.

ICly playing a character that treats your character in-line with how their character is feeling right now?  That's role-playing.  PCs should make rash judgements, guess wrong, and make egregious mistakes now and again.  Stay IC. 

No one likes to lose, but sometimes it happens.  Sometimes it makes the story move in ways you can't imagine.  Look at Game of Thrones - Ned Stark / the Red Wedding / Joffrey.  Yes storylines die when a PC does, but they also spawn from it.

I don't advocate PK as the go-to answer.  But it -is- a valid response many times.

I'm reminded of the quote I see now and again that amounts to "M-C-B is great, unless it's happening to my character.  Then you're being a dick!"

I don't invest time into my characters just so some jackass can go "Whoops, lol, mybad". I expect better.

Quote from: whitt on October 26, 2015, 12:58:23 PM

Quote from: Jihelu on October 26, 2015, 12:38:23 PM
On another note thats kinda rude tbh, I don't know if that is borderline ooc dickness, it doesn't seem that way, but that kind of sucks.

I don't understand.

OOCly dickness would be making a revenge PC.

ICly playing a character that treats your character in-line with how their character is feeling right now?  That's role-playing.  PCs should make rash judgements, guess wrong, and make egregious mistakes now and again.  Stay IC. 

No one likes to lose, but sometimes it happens.  Sometimes it makes the story move in ways you can't imagine.  Look at Game of Thrones - Ned Stark / the Red Wedding / Joffrey.  Yes storylines die when a PC does, but they also spawn from it.

I don't advocate PK as the go-to answer.  But it -is- a valid response many times.

I'm reminded of the quote I see now and again that amounts to "M-C-B is great, unless it's happening to my character.  Then you're being a dick!"

I suppose you are right.

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 01:03:19 PM
I don't invest time into my characters just so some jackass can go "Whoops, lol, mybad". I expect better.

Until you are ready to accept that your beloved characters are going to be subject to absolutely random, asinine, and possibly terminal injustices you are going to have a hard time, friend. 

Try being the one that gets randomed. And see how un-fucking-fun it is. Then say that.

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 05:14:54 PM
Try being the one that gets randomed. And see how un-fucking-fun it is. Then say that.

I'm pretty certain that most of us have been in that position before.

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 11:51:40 AM
I'm going to have a hard time giving other players the benefit of a doubt from now on. I was involved with a character that was apped and basically sentenced to die on day one by powerful characters, despite having next to zero connection to whatever the offending incident was.

It was shit, and it makes me think that the playerbase is derpy garbage. That they would rather squash a dozen interesting plot lines. That they would refuse to give the benefit of the doubt to a pc when it was extended to them already. That they would rather durr durr durr kill than try to interact with a pc.

It was so badly done that it makes me reconsider whether this hobby is worth my time.

I have no idea what the incident was, so I can't speak to it directly, but don't forget players (especially players in sponsored roles) have no requirement to let other characters live.  They do have a requirement to act and react in a realistic way.  I have no idea if this principle influenced the situation in question, but I've seen some similar ones that were unfortunate, but also very expected, given the IC circumstances.

I don't know how recent this is, but this is a reminder not to vaguebook on the GDB, or complain about character deaths. Especially not if it is indeed recent.

I can't believe nobody has posted MJ eating popcorn yet.

You have failed me GDB.

Might as well use the press though.

I'll just finish with that I think it's sad some players don't think they owe other players a pinch of courtesy here and there. Nor believe that they owe anyone a fun play environment.

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 05:31:59 PM
I'll just finish with that I think it's sad some players don't think they owe other players a pinch of courtesy here and there. Nor believe that they owe anyone a fun play environment.

We've all been there. I've been there many times. Give it a little time. Before you know it, you'll feel right as rain.


(I just quoted the Oracle from The Matrix. Take that 1999.)

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 01:03:19 PM
I don't invest time into my characters just so some jackass can go "Whoops, lol, mybad". I expect better.

Going to have to agree with him here.

its a game, make it fun for people, not just yourself, or your chasing players away.

People won't play or invest time in a game if it isn't fun. Its simple.

Quote from: Seeker on October 26, 2015, 04:35:51 PM

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 01:03:19 PM
I don't invest time into my characters just so some jackass can go "Whoops, lol, mybad". I expect better.

Until you are ready to accept that your beloved characters are going to be subject to absolutely random, asinine, and possibly terminal injustices you are going to have a hard time, friend. 

Its not as though someone rolled up guild Assassin, has been killing random NPCs on the streets and leaving them to rot, and then get cornered by the Arm and "unfairly" killed.

If you're subjected to "absolutely random" injustices, then this ceases to be a game. Perhaps some people are accepting of "I spent 3 real life days of my adult life on this character, but this guy thought "lol I'm bored" and killed him without a whole lot of reason" but I don't think I'm the only one who wants to play a game. Being accepting of "sometimes you die" isn't an excuse when its "sometimes you waste all your time on this collaborative storytelling game".

I had a character that was assassinated, for the simple fact of joining "the wrong clan at the wrong time". Damn right I was pissed. I pulled strings, and found out WHY I was killed... suddenly I wasn't so mad. But "doing nothing wrong" and suddenly getting a Mantis Head while shopping for groceries? I mean come on.

I would argue that without knowing much about the PC who kills yours, you can't  really say whether you've  "done nothing wrong".

Quote from: manipura on October 26, 2015, 06:34:32 PM
I would argue that without knowing much about the PC who kills yours, you can't  really say whether you've  "done nothing wrong".

Yes I can. I can also be pretty sure of IC and OOC assumptions made by the other parties.

The argument that "I don't know what was on the other side of that PK" may be valid, but it sure as hell isn't any fun.

I have to agree.

All PCs should be assumed to be played with garbage intentions until proven otherwise. And even then, the player's probably trying to lull you into a false sense of security.

There is almost no 'good death' on Armageddon.  Everyone always feels cheated or wronged somehow, because they just died.  No one intends to die.  Thus it is always jarring, a surprise, and leaves you feeling like something was wonky, because you were being very careful, and doing what you could to -avoid- death, not embrace it.

Thus, when it comes at the hand of other players, it's easy to say they did it 'just for the lolz'.  Killing plotlines is not a very valid argument, since in most cases, it comes as a -result- of plotlines.  What you're actually concerned about is -your- plotlines, not -theirs-, which is why you feel cheated.

One of the things that will make you absolutely paranoid in this game (and sometimes live longer) is think along the lines  of 'Who has a reason to kill me?'.  Don't apply today's standards of what is justifiable, put it in terms of the smallest slights, the inherited slights (if you join a clan), the competition, those who just don't like you, etc.  I find dozens of people who could want me dead at any given time.  Heh.  Point being...I've been here a long time.  I haven't seen -meaningless PK- in a long time.  It always means something to someone for a reason.  You don't have to agree with the reason, or the degree of measure taken for the reason...but you do have to realize it's there, otherwise you're, as you say, not going to enjoy the game, but it's due to your own tunnel-vision on your own PC and standards in a multiplayer game with rampant relativism.


Added due to replies:

Quote from: Alesan on October 26, 2015, 06:57:23 PM
The argument that "I don't know what was on the other side of that PK" may be valid, but it sure as hell isn't any fun.

I have to agree.

As noted,  death is never fun.  I don't know what you're saying, exactly.  "Oh, that makes a lot of sense.  But you should still not do it because it's not what I wanted." is the gist of it, from my vantage point.

I don't know if this is worth the back and forth.  Some people are talking about a specific incident (or incidents) some about generalities.  Agreement between the two is unlikely.

I guess I would only say, Jingo, please don't be too hasty to judge another player if there is any chance that their actions were in keeping with their character.  And even if you somehow magically know that what they did was just for the OOC thrill, I guess I would say griefers are people too.  They deserve to have fun playing this game also (though I hope they will choose to limit when and how, and desperately hope the rest of us won't be judged by their choices, as would seem to have been the case here.)

Quote from: Jingo on October 26, 2015, 05:14:54 PM
Try being the one that gets randomed. And see how un-fucking-fun it is. Then say that.

It would have been inappropriate to say unless I have been.  And I decided to keep playing in spite of it.  Not your enemy.

If anyone is expecting a gift-wrapped Villain Speech or some other plot-reveal as part of their death scene explaining the why and wherefore, they are naive.  If anyone counts on every character they encounter to be reasonable and just and they are headed for heartbreak.

I argue for player courtesy.  Always have.  I'm not urging players to make psychopaths who kill for lols.  I have sympathy for character losses.  Lots.  But I stand firmly by my claim:  "Get used to possibility of random tragedy as part of this game."

Sometimes it just might just be because someone was hungry and knew they could sell your boots for meat.  Maybe your rented the wrong apartment.  Sometimes you are the wrong person to walk down the street at the wrong time.  Sometimes you might be the unwitting element of a plot that fourteen other players are all in the know about.  You aren't.  Your character's death somehow becomes a key element.  Sucks.  Sometimes it is just because other players are ass-wipes.  Check the rules.  http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Armageddon (http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Armageddon)


Seeker

Quote from: Armaddict on October 26, 2015, 07:01:42 PM
Added due to replies:

Quote from: Alesan on October 26, 2015, 06:57:23 PM
The argument that "I don't know what was on the other side of that PK" may be valid, but it sure as hell isn't any fun.

I have to agree.

As noted,  death is never fun.  I don't know what you're saying, exactly.  "Oh, that makes a lot of sense.  But you should still not do it because it's not what I wanted." is the gist of it, from my vantage point.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying it's not any fun. I completely realize it will continue and I'm not supposed to be pissed off about it. Telling me to get over it and that I'm a whiny baby for not liking it isn't any fun either.

This is precisely why I petitioned staff to require characters break into dramatic monologues before every kill.

The curly moustache is, of course, optional.

Quote from: Alesan on October 26, 2015, 07:25:25 PM

Quote from: Armaddict on October 26, 2015, 07:01:42 PM
Added due to replies:

Quote from: Alesan on October 26, 2015, 06:57:23 PM
The argument that "I don't know what was on the other side of that PK" may be valid, but it sure as hell isn't any fun.

I have to agree.

As noted,  death is never fun.  I don't know what you're saying, exactly.  "Oh, that makes a lot of sense.  But you should still not do it because it's not what I wanted." is the gist of it, from my vantage point.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying it's not any fun. I completely realize it will continue and I'm not supposed to be pissed off about it. Telling me to get over it and that I'm a whiny baby for not liking it isn't any fun either.

Well.  That's why I was saying I didn't know what you were saying exactly.  You were making the two points juxtaposed to each other, which meant I had to guess which one you were putting emphasis on.