Greetings!
Welcome to a quality of life update email. No historical snippets or short stories this week, just a bunch of updates and changes designed to improve the player experience.

Shared bank accounts
Huzzah! Characters can now create a shared bank account with others, without the need for a clan. It's not using your personal account, it's creating a new account that's shared with others. With shared accounts we are hoping for better continuity for PC clans and other groups. Bribing the off-peak Templar has never been easier! This functionality will help foster better connectivity and continuing stories between PCs who may not be able to connect lately due to playtime differences. We'll share the full help file on launch day June 15th!

Advanced Start
It's no secret that many of our players don't particularly enjoy 'the grind' or simply no longer have time for it. To that end, we have introduced the Advanced Start option to improve their experience. This special application option allows players to create PCs with a head start in their key skills, providing significant boosts to starting skill levels, extra gear for clanned characters, and more starting coin for independents. It is compatible with all mundane class options and is a great option for players who would sometimes just like to hit the ground running and jump straight into the action.
Check out the full details here in this forum post.

Changes To PK Guidance & Helpfile
ArmageddonMUD features an unrestricted PvP environment within a permadeath framework, making it a highly dangerous world where death can come swiftly. To ensure that PvP enhances character-driven interactions, our updated policy provides clear guidelines for responsible roleplay, emphasizing respect for fellow players and the storytelling process. Players can engage in combat anywhere in the game world but must consider the impact on the broader narrative and community, using roleplaying tools to communicate motives and enrich the game. Clear communication with staff is also expected to ensure that PK meets our RP standards, ensuring that in-character conflicts contribute meaningfully to the overall game world.
Read the full help file here.

Role Calls, Applications & Launch Timeline!
We will be posting our leader and special role calls June 1st! Instructions and expectations will be included in a mega-thread detailing all of them in the same place. Here is our timeline for this:

June 1st - Role calls are open with the details posted.
June 7th - Role calls close.
June 7th - 10th - Staff make decisions!
June 10th - Regular apps and specapps (non-leaders/sponsored) may app as normal to receive pre-approval. (This way you can make any adjustments required before the launch date and get to playing right away on June 15th.)
June 10th to June 13th - Set up of leadership roles.
June 13th & 14th - Session Zero for sponsored and leadership roles.
June 15th - Game launches yay!

We look forward to seeing you in game!

More clarification based on questions received:

Sorcerers still require staff sponsorship and a rolecall as talked about here:  https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58568.0.html .  Additionally, they require 10 karma to apply for normally (however, right now they require  7)

We're working on the exact list of sponsored roles right now so that we can get them out to give folks time to think about it.  Don't hold me to this, it's just our goal, but we're looking on or about June 1 to post those lists.

Yeah, despite my usual criticism and what could honestly be seen as nit-picking, I'm very much looking forward to seasons. I've said since I started playing that consolidating players in a single area is the right decision for encouraging interaction and facilitating RP. Hopefully the days of logging in, seeing 30-40 people online only for those online to be in a different part of the game from you will be over.

I've also been liking the first impression of new staff, the storytellers seem inspired and open to ideas, and generally I've not seen anything that I'd consider to be red flags.

The changes to gemmed are also really nice, I understood that sometimes the oppression and such is a key part of the theme but giving players the change to reach higher in society as anything other than a mundane human is a really good step forward. I hope perhaps dwarves will get a similar treatment or opportunity in the future.

All in all, good things. I know I can be a bit of a negative Nancy on the forums, focusing on what I think could be improved- but I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I actually think staff are doing a lot of great things and I'm looking forward to what's in store, I think they deserve a lot of kudos for pushing on despite everything.

Howdy Folks.  Long time off and on player here who had been out of the game for quite some time.  Planning on coming back to play Seasons, and I suspect I'm not the only one.  Wanted to share what I think are some real possibilities.  Or things I hope are possibilities.

1.  A number of people like myself intrigued by the new approach, the higher density of players in one place, the fresh start in history, etc deciding to come give it a shot after a long absence.  I believe we may see over 75 people online at a time.  Maybe more.

2.  With the "jump start" for skills, we will be able to start doing significant things sooner and won't be so afraid of losing all the hours of grinding.  This will make us more open to telling interesting stories - even at our own expense.  This is something I've always aspired to and never been great at.

3.  These things taken together - I think - are going to lead to some of the best Arm we've seen in a very long time.   I've had a handful of experiences over the years where I felt like I was part of an amazing story - but those were brief and fleeting.  I think that will happen much more often in Seasons.

Hope I'm right about all of this...

Will there be a change to the ranking glass ceiling with the seasonal model? Are we likely to see red robed templar PCs? Byn commanders? House heads?
If not, how will risky (and potentially ruinous) clan decisions be made? Will it just be up to the staffer assigned to that particular clan's discretion?

Quote from: Pariah on May 20, 2024, 03:07:39 PMYeah but let's assume for a second that stats run in a playable range of 1-10 for humans and lets say that we are given 20 points to split between those four for humans.

All that would happen is people would just start experimenting to figure out the best min-max allocation and once discovered, using it every time.  You'd literally see six fighter type characters out of X player that all had the same stat spread.

That would still be better than the current system. I'd rather have a game where a lot of players pick what they think works best (and judging by the countless discussions about this, there's absolutely no consensus about what's best) than one where characters are created either amazing, mediocre or terrible, and stay that way forever, based on blind luck. The idea of min-maxed stat optimization is far less pernicious than what we have now where you can take two characters of the exact same race/class/age/whatever, and then one has AI/EX/EG/VG and the other has VG/G/AA/BA. That's a shockingly terrible stat system in a game like this where conflict between PCs is a central theme.

Fortunately for everyone, there's no need for a crass points-buy system ala D&D. A system where people tailor their stats to their exact specifications is not the only alternative to the current RNG fiesta. Shadows of Isildur came up with a much better system over twenty years ago: characters have a fixed pool of total stats, then you pick the order you want them in, and the game rolls some dice that determine the final result. Since the parts always add up to the same sum, no character is truly shafted or gifted. Maybe Bob didn't get as high a number in his first-priority stat as Steve did, but then his second priority isn't as low, and so on. Plenty of room for characters to be different, but you never get saddled with a character that's just bad, or one that has unbeatable godlike stats that lets you be way more powerful than if you hadn't been so lucky.

Stats make too much of a difference to be as random as they are. No amount of rerolls will fix this problem. The solution is simple and doesn't require changes to any other aspect of the code. It has been proven to work well on other RPIs and completely solved the issue of stats without resorting to something as unpalatable as a points-buy system. All this change would do is eliminate the unfairness of characters that are way below or above par.

I mean, the current system "Works" just like the Karma system "Works".

Not perfect by any means but functional.

My thoughts:

Saying "most people want" is tough to prove, because the game's players fluctuate between 80 and 180 players at a given time. The GDB and Discord are home only to the most vocal.

Wanting the system to change is perfectly fine, but understand that no matter HOW many people want it to change that it isn't the Players' game, it is the Staff's game.

I'm fine with the system how it is, but over time it has lost so much focus on storytelling and roleplay that the most vocal of the playerbase seems to want to have every coded advantage so they are on "equal footing" with everyone else. Without such a focus on the story of the game, all Arm has left is being the new Grudash or THG.

Also, the new changes to stats using ceiling() will make a lot of difference in my opinion. No more will you need to age up 10 years to finally roll enough to get +1 strength, only to then fall in the bracket where it falls back to .99 and you lose it.

I don't really get why there is such a high need for changing the stat system. I remember suiciding a PC because of low stat-rolls when I was still a noob to Arm. But as years passed, I realized that the game needs all clever and stupid, strong and weak, agile and clumsy, tough and fragile.

Quote from: Windstorm on April 22, 2024, 05:46:08 PMIt's your birthday! You have just turned 24.
You can now hold no more than four limes.

Arm already does this, as you reach some milestones, your stats change. When you grow old, your strength reduces and wisdom increases.  Though I am not sure about at what age that happens.