Armageddon General Discussion Board

This thread is for players to ask Producers and Administrators the things they've always wanted to know.

Be warned, just because you've always wanted to know something doesn't mean you will get an answer! We will try and answer what we can, while still preserving things that are ICly sensitive or that might reveal things that other players wish to discover in game.

We will do our best to answer respectfully and honestly, in return we'd love it if you asked your questions in the same light.

We'll keep this thread open for the next few days and invite you to enter into dialogue with us.

Were there gameplay reasons for the closure of Undertuluk or was it just a result of IC events?

What happened to Undertuluk was the result of IC events.  OOCly, it was intended to be changed and altered.  The work required staff-side to do it fell through.  That had to do with planning several things at once:  the deluge near Tuluk, alteration of hundreds of rooms in and around Tuluk, the introduction of the Arena a couple months prior, and the like.  Also, it had to do with a staffer going on leave that had volunteered to do the most work on it.  When resources are scarce, we make do with what is available!

What -was- the shamim l shamim thing that happened a day or so ago?

Why was crafting broken earlier? Attempting to craft earned a "Crafting is temporarily available, try again soon".

Quote from: Saellyn on October 27, 2014, 10:08:50 PM
What -was- the shamim l shamim thing that happened a day or so ago?

Part of the randomized sorcerer single-spell code, tied to single locations and times.  If all of the moons are in the sky, you can cast a mysterious spell.  Mon un shamim l shamim.

Quote
Why was crafting broken earlier? Attempting to craft earned a "Crafting is temporarily available, try again soon".

I'm afraid you ran into the anti-spam-crafting code.  It went live before it was intended to go live.  On a bright note, you probably weren't spam crafting, but you'll only know once you see your account notes (it will be logged there automatically).

I've seen a perceivable, positive difference in both the quantity and quality of work going into the game and into communications with the players from staff over the last couple of months    It feels like something has awoken the sleeper, and I think I like it.  The fact this thread exists is further evidence of it!  

What happened IRL, or in-game that spurred this sudden and delightful change?  Was it long in the making and we're just happening to see the fruits of that labor now, or was it somewhat recent?

Ahhhh. What is the definition of spam crafting? Is there a certain number of crafts, or is it defined by the amount of RP put into each craft (emotes/thinks and such beforehand)?

Just curious so I don't go over this limit or someday sit there bored going "craft silk into silky dress" fifty times.


... I'm going to google shamim l shamim and figure out what it really is.

In seriousness, the shamim thing was a typo from a staffer, and the crafting thing did break.

Oh God I thought you were actually serious about an anti spamcraft code LOL!

Okay, here's a good one. What are some of the things you would like to do, now that you've ascended to Producer?

Wizturbo - I think it's a combination of things. Much of it was long in the making. For instance a lot of the 'new' projects you are seeing in game were things that were planned out over a year ago. They didn't come to fruition for a variety of reasons, including having the staff manpower to see them through.  Now we have people that are super keen to get things going.

For myself, on a personal level, a number of things happened. One was that I took my first real break from the game last year (after 9 years of staffing). I've taken mini breaks over time before, but this time I took off three solid months where I did not still log in and read staff boards, I did not log in to the GDB, and I did not log in to the Game Port. Part of the reason I did this was to assess what I wanted to do with the game. Knowing that I didn't want to be here if I wasn't still committed to Armageddon and working to make it better.

The other was that I had a really tough year this year. It made me reevaluate a lot of things. In the Armageddon equation I thought about - what makes this game fun? For me it's much more fun when I get to play in NPCs, or help with storylines. And so I have been. Big ups to the Storytellers who've been putting up with my overenthusiastic newbness and letting me run around in NPCs with them.

Lastly I will say that this is the first time we've been fully staffed in a couple of years. This last staffing round was excellent, we had a lot of high quality applications, and we had a lot of legends asking about returning. It was really hard to choose who to bring on board. We went with a mix of old and new and have found the atmosphere in staffing land is a lot of fun, there's some positive energy and people are really engaged and wanting to do things.  I'm super hopeful that people will stay around for a while, I hope they are enjoying staffing (you can ask them in the Ask the Storytellers thread!). If we can get them to stick then I predict that you're going to be seeing more and more new and exciting things in the future.  

Quote from: Adhira on October 27, 2014, 10:27:05 PM
Big ups to the Storytellers who've been putting up with my overenthusiastic newbness and letting me run around in NPCs with them.

(Running around with Adhira in NPCs has actually been a lot of fun.)

Quote from: Saellyn on October 27, 2014, 10:26:15 PM
Okay, here's a good one. What are some of the things you would like to do, now that you've ascended to Producer?

Typically when one becomes a Producer, they are not as directly involved in clan administration and oversight.  Both times so far (I was a Producer for several months in 2012/2013), I have been in the position of doing both tasks.  Something I'd like to do in a general sense is focus just on the Producer task.  However, regardless of the hats we wear in life or in Armageddon, we are often wishing for the ideal situation while knowing the day-to-day is going to bring something less than ideal.  So generally, I'd like to be doing more Producer type things.  Shaping larger projects, giving feedback, and assisting with things that are not necessarily in my area of focus--things like that--without them getting derailed more often than not with the day-to-day.  It will happen, it always does, but I am hoping to get some space. 

So anyway, for now, Adhira and I are sharing the duties of being Allanak's administrator(s), flying directly in the face of this man's wisdom.
(http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/never-half-ass-two-things-whole-ass-one-thing.jpg)

Wizturbo:  I think that a lot of it, to me, is the flurry of new staff activity and interest.  Fresh (and fresh but not new) faces looking to do things and get things done?  It's great.  Being fully staffed is fun.  To pre-empt another question, we aren't always fully staffed because people do weird things like have lives that matter apart from this game that is a hobby.  We don't always fill vacancies right away.  Often enough we have waited until we need a handful (two-three) new staffers to fill vacancies, which puts pressure on remaining staffers and increases workload (which in turn may increase the desire to rotate out).  That is a practice that might well need some revision.  The flow of ideas and completed work have both been tremendous and invigorating.  If I go out for a weekend and let folks know I'll be gone, I now come back to more than twenty new posts on proposals, code discussions, and brainstorming on plot ideas related to player stuff that is going on.  It is a feedback loop of fun.  I'm glad you are seeing the effects of it and we hope to involve everyone in it that wants to participate.

I'm just going to go ahead and ask, because the worst that can happen is that I won't know any more then I do now!

In the Muarki-Volcano-Relocation HRPT, there were spies in Tuluk. The PC population never caught them or realized anything was wrong until the deed was done, as we can see from Original Submissions. Nyr also said that if any of the spies were ever brought to interrogation, they'd essentially "lose" and be found out. That's cool, but my question had more to do with the virtual world. Is there a behind the scenes reason that a city full of...Tuluki templars...didn't find the spies?

This question is in no way intended to belittle the players who had those roles! Rather, it's one that just has to do with figuring more out about how we expect the world to be, and what happened. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with this question!

I think the logs implied there was some sort of Manchurian Agent (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManchurianAgent) stuff going on there.

But if not that, then well, I have no idea. I could have misread.

Probably a silly question, yet I am wondering what Producers do. I looked at the help file and the entry is pretty general.  Could you give a brief job description of a Producer?

Cheers.

Why aren't desert elves widely literate, or are any of them literate at all? (In allundean of course).

Quote from: HavokBlue on October 28, 2014, 07:00:06 AM
Why aren't desert elves widely literate, or are any of them literate at all? (In allundean of course).

Whoa. That's a seriously great question.

Quote from: Taven on October 28, 2014, 12:58:10 AM
I'm just going to go ahead and ask, because the worst that can happen is that I won't know any more then I do now!

In the Muarki-Volcano-Relocation HRPT, there were spies in Tuluk. The PC population never caught them or realized anything was wrong until the deed was done, as we can see from Original Submissions. Nyr also said that if any of the spies were ever brought to interrogation, they'd essentially "lose" and be found out. That's cool, but my question had more to do with the virtual world. Is there a behind the scenes reason that a city full of...Tuluki templars...didn't find the spies?

This question is in no way intended to belittle the players who had those roles! Rather, it's one that just has to do with figuring more out about how we expect the world to be, and what happened. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with this question!

Covered here (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47751.msg834885.html#msg834885), here (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47751.msg834921.html#msg834921), and here (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47751.msg835215.html#msg835215) (all in one of the log submission threads).  Also covered here (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47771.msg835200.html#msg835200), here (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47771.msg835208.html#msg835208), and here (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47771.msg835354.html#msg835354).

Quote from: Norcal on October 28, 2014, 05:20:55 AM
Probably a silly question, yet I am wondering what Producers do. I looked at the help file and the entry is pretty general.  Could you give a brief job description of a Producer?

Cheers.

It is pretty general because that can often be the case. 

Producers govern the direction of the game and things in it by consensus.  This means final sign off on projects and proposals and guidance for those things.  There's also a lot of the administrative stuff that is made by Producer final call.  Staff complaints?  Producers handle them.  (If it's about a specific producer, another producer will handle it.)  Player issues and disagreements that have escalated stop at the Producer level as well.

Quote from: HavokBlue on October 28, 2014, 07:00:06 AM
Why aren't desert elves widely literate, or are any of them literate at all? (In allundean of course).

There are several answers to this; I'll give as many of them as I can.

The lore answer could be any number of things.  Perhaps tribal elders are literate.  Perhaps the elven race itself is illiterate in the language they speak, and the only folks literate in allundean are nobles and templars with a specific focus in learning that written language from their carefully guarded library resources.  Perhaps elven tribes rely more heavily on oral tradition instead of passing things down by written form.  Until such a time as the documentation is more clear on it, one would have to make IC assumptions on that if they were curious about it.

Historically (in an OOC sense) I doubt any PC elf has been literate, but I'm not 100% positive on that.  Literacy for anyone (apart from the groups that do have it) is a subject that has been discussed previously with staff and it has not gone anywhere.

Cool, thanks. I'd always wondered if there was an actual IC reason for it or if it's just one of those things that is because it was never addressed.

I'm going to ask a few questions just of curiosity since you rarely get this sort of chance.  :)

1) Do we ever have any plans of making silt skimmers function more like wagons in the sense that you could live on them/store things on them instead of them functioning like mounts with tickets currently?

2) Many many many years ago there was a plotline where a sliver of magick diamond had to be retrieved for a staff ran NPC in the bottom of some ancient dwarven mines. The T'zai Byn unit that my elf was a part of then got hired to do this. The sliver of diamond, when held, would make you lose your mind and start seeing things. The NPC in reference referred to everyone as "Cully". Do you remember this, and what in the world was all of that about? Also, the next RL day, after that sliver of diamond was lost to the void deep in those mines....it reappeared to my PC under a bench in the sparring hall, which of course my elf picked up....because diamond....and it made me lose my mind. Why did it come back? (This may have been close to fifteen years ago, I understand if nobody remembers, but I have always wondered. One of my favorite RPT's.)

3) Why did we decide to kill off all of the halflings? I liked halflings. I want halflings back.

4) Do you foresee wagons being craftable by PC's fully being implemented at any time in the near future?

5) Why did we kill off kanks? A yellow kank stands here. Allofmynostalgia.jpg  :(

6) If there was one thing you could change about the game if you had unlimited resources, what would it be?

7) In Arm 2.0, I believe there were plans to implement player-ran agriculture to some degree? Are those plans still on the table somewhere for Arm now? (I wanna' be a, farmer, crop grower, twenty inch blades, on my garden hoe'er.) 90's kids know what I'm talking about

8.) I feel like the flooding of the forest etc...was part of a push to "change" the landscape more dramatically and push it towards things that were planned for Arm 2.0. Was that the case and with Arm 2.0 being scrapped, was the forest flooding and landscape change there a sort of, "Well, let's just roll with it now.", situation?

9) Which staffer puts in the most time when it comes to staffing Arm? Come on, step into the lime light, you know who you are.  :)

10) What is the longest single length of playtime out of a player with no logout breaks or going link dead that you can recall?

11) With the ability to now create our own tribes....Can we create our own desert elf tribes or are they still limited to just the tribes that are currently open/staff supported?

12) Is more widespread literacy in the playerbase a thing the staff is considering/has considered and if so, what is the greatest hurdle to having it implemented? If there are no hurdles, is it just a matter of staff not wanting it in the game currently?

13) There was some work being done at one point to limit the powers of The Way for non-psions to make it less of a universal "Are you online and what's your sdesc."-tool. Is that still in the works somewhere?

14) If you can think of the actions of a single PC that you feel changed the world most dramatically without them being part of a staff-ran plot (in any fashion), who would they have been and what did they do that comes to mind?

15) The banking code. Nyr, you know where I'm going with this. It has been almost a year. Just consider this my reset on the timer.  :P

What do Producers do? - A lot of what I do is talk to other staff. Storytellers might come to me with an idea and want to brainstorm it a little. Or they might have questions about how best to approach something, or ask for some guidance in dealing with a situation. Administrators will be asking about higher level changes, if things will fit with the overall direction Producers are looking at right now, and so on. We do a lot of long term planning. We have plans for things we'd like to do in the next 6 months, the next year, the next two. These are story related, building related and policy related. A lot of times things don't stay on track and get delayed due to RL and staff turnover. So one of the things we're discussing right now is the way we recruit and how to tighten that up so we don't have long periods of time where there's only 1 active staff member on a clan group.

I also read through the request tool regularly, that's where a lot of the storyteller brainstorming is going on, where they're talking about the player plots etc. We also do those jobs that no one else really wants to tackle like Account Notes, Special Apps, Player and Staff Complaints. I sponsor projects, right now I have active: Allanak Rooftops, Critter Creation, Tattoo Project, Clay Craftables, Apartment Renovations.  Sponsoring them means I oversee them to make sure they stay on track, that I commit to working with any staff that join those project teams and sign off on anything they build within a week. I also do building for some of them (Rooftops and Apartments are ones I'm actively building on). Finally we also get to worm our way into plotlines, this means I get to help out with animations, echo's and planning.

Desertman:

1) No. We have no plans for this.

2) You know it sounds vaguely familiar, I'd have to spend some time researching to find out more on it. It was before my time on staff though, most likely it was something that was dreamt up on the day and then someone saw your PC sitting there and decided to fuck with it.

3) Well, first I will point out that we (current Producers) didn't decide to kill off the halflings. That decision was made by the Overlord team. They were wiped out though in reaction to somethings that were happening IC as well as some thought to copyright issues.

4) About 2 years ago we had a large scale project to make a form of wagons craftable. Some storytellers (Talia and Rathustra I think) put in a lot of work building all the components needed to make this happen. We brainstormed what form of wagons could be crafted, and how they could be crafted. Morgenes started working on the wagon crafting skill. There was a code hold up. It got put on the back burner, it's still there. Could it be released in game at any point? Yes. It requires someone with the code savviness to finish up that crafting code.

5) Again, current Producers didn't kill off kanks, this was not our decision. It was however part of the decision making for the implementors or Arm 2. Kanks were a source material issue, and so they were pinpointed as something that had to go.

6) Code base. I'd pay a team of people to put together a code base, with complimentary web tools then move our game over to it. Its so much work to even think about with our current set up and volunteers that I just can't, but I'd love something that was easier for us to work with.

7) I don't remember agriculture plans.

8) Yes you are correct. Yes the plan is sort of 'let's just roll with it'. We had some other plans in mind for that area. Like the Under Tuluk question it became an issue of resources, which parts of the game to change when, and so on. It could still happen. Things may change there, right now it's not on any of the active project lists.

9) Not me.

10) Memory eludes me.

11) From the helpfile:
You may only create tribal or family roles for humans, dwarves and city elves (desert elves, half-giants and mul tribes/families are not permitted).

12) Yes we've considered it. We've gone back and forth on it. We haven't really decided how we want to go with it, but we would like to see it expanded. We put it on hold because books have issues. We don't want to have more people playing with a code that doesn't save your items properly, or can sometimes crash the game. I believe Nathvaan talked in the player staff meeting about why it's not a simple solution to fix this code, but it is something he has on his radar.

13) I don't recall this project.

14) It's early, I haven't had coffee, need more time on this one.

 :) Thank you.

Quote from: Desertman on October 28, 2014, 10:39:35 AM
1) Do we ever have any plans of making silt skimmers function more like wagons in the sense that you could live on them/store things on them instead of them functioning like mounts with tickets currently?

There's nothing in proposals for this, or at least nothing active.

Quote2) Many many many years ago there was a plotline where a sliver of magick diamond had to be retrieved for a staff ran NPC in the bottom of some ancient dwarven mines. The T'zai Byn unit that my elf was a part of then got hired to do this. The sliver of diamond, when held, would make you lose your mind and start seeing things. The NPC in reference referred to everyone as "Cully". Do you remember this, and what in the world was all of that about? Also, the next RL day, after that sliver of diamond was lost to the void deep in those mines....it reappeared to my PC under a bench in the sparring hall, which of course my elf picked up....because diamond....and it made me lose my mind. Why did it come back? (This may have been close to fifteen years ago, I understand if nobody remembers, but I have always wondered. One of my favorite RPT's.)

Before my time.  Best guess?  Your elven PC was a diamond in the ruff circle.

Quote3) Why did we decide to kill off all of the halflings? I liked halflings. I want halflings back.

Two reasons.

1.  Killing things permanently (or seemingly so) is appropriate for a setting where that kind of thing happens.  It reinforces that across the board for all plots.  Permadeath is real and decisions made can snowball into something nasty with lasting results.  Also, it was a cool plot.

2.  Probably related to source material.

Quote4) Do you foresee wagons being craftable by PC's fully being implemented at any time in the near future?

Near is a strong word.  It definitely has been discussed.  It definitely has had work done on it before.  There are code needs for it.  We'll see!

Quote5) Why did we kill off kanks? A yellow kank stands here. Allofmynostalgia.jpg  :(

See #3.

Quote6) If there was one thing you could change about the game if you had unlimited resources, what would it be?

It's not "one thing" because it's a host of changes, but it is one end result that would be lovely:  the entire game converted to the javamug codebase in a fully functioning form.

Quote7) In Arm 2.0, I believe there were plans to implement player-ran agriculture to some degree? Are those plans still on the table somewhere for Arm now? (I wanna' be a, farmer, crop grower, twenty inch blades, on my garden hoe'er.) 90's kids know what I'm talking about

I'm not familiar with those plans exactly but they are not on the table for Arm now.

Quote8) I feel like the flooding of the forest etc...was part of a push to "change" the landscape more dramatically and push it towards things that were planned for Arm 2.0. Was that the case and with Arm 2.0 being scrapped, was the forest flooding and landscape change there a sort of, "Well, let's just roll with it now.", situation?

If it has not been stated already, then yes, many changes made to the gameworld were influenced by the existence of Arm 2 and the world that it would be--this was one of them.  The landscape change was always intended to be something to "roll with" regardless of plans for the new game or timetable, but as Adhira mentioned above, those plans did change.  So we rolled in a different direction.

Quote10) What is the longest single length of playtime out of a player with no logout breaks or going link dead that you can recall?

Off of the top of my head, a few GDB accounts come to mind, but I'm probably wrong.  This does bring up a possible RL charity event idea in the future for an in-game gladiator event, though...

Quote11) With the ability to now create our own tribes....Can we create our own desert elf tribes or are they still limited to just the tribes that are currently open/staff supported?

Quote from: helpfileAll members must be blood relatives and of the same race. You may only create tribal or family roles for humans, dwarves and city elves (desert elves, half-giants and mul tribes/families are not permitted).

Quote12) Is more widespread literacy in the playerbase a thing the staff is considering/has considered and if so, what is the greatest hurdle to having it implemented? If there are no hurdles, is it just a matter of staff not wanting it in the game currently?

It's something we know players are interested in.  It is something staff have discussed.  More code work is needed to support existing roles that have literacy, as well as to make it more stable.  Literacy itself is a big issue in a virtual sense and gameworld sense.  The greatest hurdle is "it."  It's not just "what will it take to get it implemented?" but first "do we want to implement any changes to literacy?  if so, how many?  if so, how?"

Quote13) There was some work being done at one point to limit the powers of The Way for non-psions to make it less of a universal "Are you online and what's your sdesc."-tool. Is that still in the works somewhere?

Not sure what work you're referring to exactly.

Quote14) If you can think of the actions of a single PC that you feel changed the world most dramatically without them being part of a staff-ran plot (in any fashion), who would they have been and what did they do that comes to mind?

Arguably, Thrain or Pearl.  At the time, the Thrain thing was player led, at least as far as I know/as far as I have read on it.  Staff did get involved at some point.  That might negate that.  Pearl also built some interesting stuff and worked within the system to do great things for a non-sponsored leadership role.  Staff did also get involved in implementing and supporting this. 

Maybe the moral of the story is that no player changes the world dramatically without staff being involved.

Quote15) The banking code. Nyr, you know where I'm going with this. It has been almost a year. Just consider this my reset on the timer.  :P

Quote from: Nyr on October 15, 2014, 09:30:45 AM
Making changes to banking is something we've discussed officially recently (within the past month).  Some of the ideas here are actually in the proposal, which itself is pretty fleshed out with some neat concepts.  However, it does require some code work, and that is the bottleneck.

Overall currency discussions have also been had, but not officially.  Yes, it may be unrealistic for Tuluk to use what is ostensibly an Allanaki currency.  It will be up to staff to determine how far to go with any adjustments to currency.  If possible with code, multiple currencies could be neat; this is one of the Armageddon Reborn ideas that might eventually make its way into the game.  However, that also would be a significant amount of work to mesh multiple currencies into an economy, and that's just on the code front!

Can you tell us about the Sandlord? Since Red Storm has a low playercount, and there are no PC players of any authority or in 'the know' per se, down there, it's at best a difficult thing to find out about. Can we've some background and other things about him? Does he even exist, or is he a non-exist figure used to keep people in check? Thank you in advance ;D

The Sand Lord wouldn't be mysterious if we told you what she was really like.

i c what you did there

Quote from: Nyr on October 28, 2014, 01:41:00 PMshe

Please continue. My interest is garnered. ;)

Quote from: Nyr on October 28, 2014, 01:41:00 PM
The Sand Lord wouldn't be mysterious if we told you what she was really like.

Next question: Can we mudsecks her?

Quote from: bcw81 on October 28, 2014, 01:45:06 PM

Quote from: Nyr on October 28, 2014, 01:41:00 PM
The Sand Lord wouldn't be mysterious if we told you what she was really like.

Next question: Can we mudsecks her?

Each time someone sells a pair of black sandcloth sleeves, the Sand Lord feels a tickling sensation between her thighs.

Actually here is something you may (not) be able to answer about the Sandlord. Are they a sorceror king also? Or just some super-duper buff 100+days  played twink ranger? (I say ranger, warriors don't go to Storm due to no direction sense)

They would have to be like 1200 days played by now.

Yeah.  We're not going to be able to answer anything about the Sandlord that isn't already in a U2 song.

Quote from: Nyr on October 28, 2014, 01:54:21 PM
Yeah.  We're not going to be able to answer anything about the Sandlord that isn't already in a U2 song.

I am literally going to go hunting Bono down now. If you see me on the news for kidnapping, it's Nyr's fault.

Quote from: yousuff on October 28, 2014, 01:42:50 PM

Quote from: Nyr on October 28, 2014, 01:41:00 PMshe

Please continue. My interest is garnered. ;)

What's your favorite of all the HRPTs (as a staffer and also as a player) and why?

Quote from: Taven on October 28, 2014, 02:24:52 PM
What's your favorite of all the HRPTs (as a staffer and also as a player) and why?

For me:  the latest one.  We learned a lot from previous HRPTs.  We also made a few mistakes here and there with it in execution, and there was a crash, which is never fun for an HRPT, but...the whole thing set in motion all of the dominoes that were going to fall afterwards, like a house of cards.  (Checkmate.)  We knew at the time that this was going to be the jolt needed to make the changes in Tuluk.  Close second would be the mini HRPT in Tuluk where Utep dissolved both Orders of the templarate, and the reason I mention that one is twofold.  The leadup was dark and chilling (I hope to be able to find some logs on it).  Commoners, nobles, even templars interrogated.  The new "trope" started of a seemingly nice event (yay, celebration in the commons celebrating our "victory"--yay, let's go meet up outside of the Hlum Estate) turning into something grisly and just...wrong. Trying to show the dsytopian nightmare that Tuluk could be if you were living through such upheaval, where the power structure gets shifted, then removed, then replaced.  That kind of thing--a longer timeline of plot either kicked off by (or culminating in) a major RPT--is something I love to experience and and assist with.  Then it all ended (or perhaps started up again) with the dissolution of the two Orders, publicly, and at that point it was one of those "ok, you guys, once this RPT gets underway, we can't really turn back immediately.  We will have to see this out for a while before making changes.  I know we already approved it and we're good with capes, but seriously, you guys are cool with capes, right?" sort of things.  There was no reset button; something people were really familiar with (even if they liked/didn't like it) was going to change in an instant.  It was pretty exciting.

And I think I typo'd while animating during it, so that was nice. 

He isn't asking so I will.

Quote from: Taven on October 28, 2014, 03:36:44 PM
Has there been any discussion of expanding the world and adding new, previously unexplored wilderness areas, or is that being avoided in favor of trying to keep players more centralized for murder, corruption, betrayal?

Quote from: Molten Heart on October 28, 2014, 04:36:42 PM
He isn't asking so I will.

Quote from: Taven on October 28, 2014, 03:36:44 PM
Has there been any discussion of expanding the world and adding new, previously unexplored wilderness areas, or is that being avoided in favor of trying to keep players more centralized for murder, corruption, betrayal?

Short answer:  Yes, it has been discussed.  Long answer:  in the last player/staff chat.  Link for the announcement (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,47863.0.html), link for the log (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qH0nmX1Ou52m_t6aceLbWOt9zHnjdNCZit30yCyOPP0/edit?usp=sharing).  Relevant quotes below.

Quote from: from the staff chat in august 2014
ADHIRA: Ok we have Shadeoux next.
NYR: Ok so I will ask that question as well. Which I haven't actually read yet.  So in regards to the existing game world Shadeoux is personally a player that likes to explore and after several years of playing he's seen quite a bit and in that time the game hasn't seen as much growth and has seen some reduction in that area, and he wants to know if there are plans for any introduction of new areas to explore for mundanes over land and stuff like that, or mountains and things like that.
ADHIRA: OK, I guess I'll answer and say that currently there is no project that has been approved or is in progress to do that. What I will say on the topic of expansion is that we are not adverse to it, it is something that could happen, but for all of these building and area type discussions they take a lot of time and it's not something that we can easily just implement. I mentioned before that we don't like to have too many projects happening at once because we want to see things finish and that's because in the past we've ended up where people have joined staff, wanted to build something new or create a new area and then dropped the ball after a month or two and we've had things broken. So really if we're going to build something new we absolutely need commitment and people that we know can see it through. So there's a testing time to make sure that someone can actually undertake a project and finish it. So, if we get a staff member that has a great desire to build something that we think will add to the world and we know that they can carry it through then it's entirely possible.

QuoteADHIRA:  Ok, Derp.
NYR/DERP:  That's Derp--I'll ask that for him.  Some of it was already touched on--plans for expanding further into the game world.  The last two questions here weren't quite the same.  If you were to traverse the silt sea all the way to its end, would you find some bizarre creatures?  If you went north across the chasm north of Tuluk, would you find other stuff there?
ADHIRA:  All I can really say is that there is a coded end to the world.  At some point you are going to reach it.  As to exactly where that is and what the borders are, I don't really want to spell it out.  This is a finite world with a set number of rooms.
If you're asking if we imagine what is beyond the borders of the coded world, we do not have anything defined in that way.
NYR: Lore wise, there may well be something there.  Until we actually code things beyond the borders of the game that you can find in-game (there's a definite end to what you can explore/discover/go to)...
..I think Rahnevn touched on that, not verbally here, but of the projects we could work on, adding a whole new area to the game is the most complex thing we could do.  It takes the most amount of work, and it would only be "new" for a short amount of time.  There are ways to add new things to the game rather than adding a whole new area, and I think at least that would be better for the playerbase.

I am also curious about if you have tasked anyone with working on the items of Arm. It seems a lot of the "older" style items have weird weight properties in relation to their other properties. I mean in relations of going over them and adjusting them in relation to the newer items. Has it been discussed to perhaps give a skilled person in slashing weapons an ability to determine which of two swords will perform better for them? I mean the description of many items are often deceptive, a nice looking saber might be crap but that shattered piece of flint you shaped into a knife can stab a Bahamet to death. And then you dig up some really generic old piece of gear that seems to be far overpowered. (And fun when you see certain players figure out that x-item is the 'best', and everyone starts using it.)

Quote from: Nyr on October 28, 2014, 01:41:00 PM
The Sand Lorde wouldn't be mysterious if we told you what she was really like.

I am Sand Lorde yayaya

Voular - items get revised on a constant basis, usually when someone discovers something that it out of balance, then they'll go through and look at other things.  There can be a lot of inconsistency with items, and recently a couple of staff were (once again) tackling the armor tables that help us figure out what to set something at. We don't have anyone that is 'tasked' with doing this. It's not a fun job and no one has said they'd like to do it, so right now it's on an individual basis of if someone feels like looking into some items. The best way for items to get looked at is if someone bugs them in game. Since there are some staff that regularly look through the bug database they are likely to see it and take a look and perhaps make the needed changes.   As to determining which sword will work better - no discussion on that as far as I know. That's a code issue and something that a coder would need to want to take on as a project.

Quote from: Kol on October 28, 2014, 07:07:21 PM
What's the biggest/most amusing mistake you've made to date with your Imm powers, staff avatar, ect?

I've made so many it's hard to answer that. Here's a few.

- I was switched into a Lirathan Templar and then typed 'goto' a player who happened to be in a public tavern in Nak, forgetting that I was switched in which caused said Templar to appear in the tavern.
- I threw a knife at someone in the rinth thinking I was switched into some twitchy guy... I was not. Dead pc.
- Sent a message to a player (about them) that was intended for another staff member.
- Forgot that I wasn't invisible and went to assist a player who wished up with a death scene. Arrived at the scene and wondered why nothing was happening only to see them look at me then ask 'Adhira, are we in trouble'. Scene ruined  :(

Quote from: Kol on October 28, 2014, 07:10:48 PM

Quote from: Kol on October 28, 2014, 07:07:21 PM
What's the biggest/most amusing mistake you've made to date with your Imm powers, staff avatar, ect?

I've never forgotten the sex of any NPC or PC I played while playing it, and I never really got the hang of the self referential emotes that one can use to prevent that from happening, so I count that as a major accomplishment.  Despite the previous...something that may seem to a casual observer to be skill, talent, or discipline...I have done the following:

• Teleported to people while in the form of NPCs that really, really, really should not be doing that.
• In-character saying something to a PC about what I OOCly thought about the plan the PC was going to do or something to that effect.  Awkward.
• Stupidly stared at an fire, testing campfire stuff, and not understanding why the unlit campfire was not going out.

On average, about how many mastercraft's per month does the staff see submitted by players and how many of them are approved?

What is the funniest mastercraft you have seen to date? (Assuming you can talk about it of course.)

Is reviewing and approving mastercrafts something staff enjoys doing or is it one of those more "cumbersome duties" you guys push through because it's part of the "job"? (Just wondering.)

Edited to Add One More:

Sometimes you guys put in raw materials with no crafting recipes associated with them. At least, none that are immediately available/noticeable. I have always kind of thought your idea was that player crafters would create the crafting recipes for those items over time and that was your "design model" when you put in those materials. I like that idea. I was just curious if that was indeed your plan or if you guys just haven't "got around" to putting in craftables for those items?


In general I just like the idea of crafting recipes coming from players through IC means for most "future items", which is a self maintaining system of ensuring everything in the game is craftable.  :)

Quote from: Desertman on October 29, 2014, 10:04:14 AM
On average, about how many mastercraft's per month does the staff see submitted by players and how many of them are approved?

I'd say probably about 10 per month.

QuoteWhat is the funniest mastercraft you have seen to date? (Assuming you can talk about it of course.)

This was not a mastercraft request, but it was related to something that was a mastercraft.  Not sure how much I could reveal about it though.  Let's just say there was artwork attached at the bottom of a log, attached in a manner that was unexpected and surprising.

QuoteIs reviewing and approving mastercrafts something staff enjoys doing or is it one of those more "cumbersome duties" you guys push through because it's part of the "job"? (Just wondering.)

It depends on the mastercraft.  If you're making yet another arrow/bolt/something that there are tons of in the database, that is not really so much fun to review.  If it is a good use of the mastercraft slot and intends to flesh out things that just aren't that well-represented, or it's a unique and well-written craft of something like a worn item for an upcoming auction...those things are more fun to look into.

Quote
Sometimes you guys put in raw materials with no crafting recipes associated with them.

Do you have an example?

Kagor critter's hides?

Quote from: Desertman on October 29, 2014, 11:14:31 AM
Kagor critter's hides?

Not necessarily planned in either direction you're suggesting, no.

Quote from: Nyr on October 29, 2014, 11:25:53 AM

Quote from: Desertman on October 29, 2014, 11:14:31 AM
Kagor critter's hides?

Not necessarily planned in either direction you're suggesting, no.

*nod* *nod* Thanks.

In a text-based game environment, it is so easy to change the descriptions with a few words, yet some of the pre-written world hasn't changed in decades.


What is the current process to change some of the world that we see each day?   

What questions must be answered in order to get a change implemented?


I'm sorta looking for a broad concept answer, rather than a detail oriented answer, much like an editor would give.


Thanks.

I'm not an editor, so I can't really give you an editor's answer.

So this is my answer.

Yes, it is simple to change a few words in a description. The question really is why. The saltflats look just the same now as they did 10 years ago. Could we change them up just because someone might be bored of reading that line? Sure, but I honestly doubt that they're reading that description that closely, or that they will bother to after the first 3 times riding through that room.

If you're asking why we don't change out NPCs regularly there are a variety of reasons. Some of them we love, they add character, and we want to keep them. Some of them we don't love, we just don't care about them, and don't care that they've been begging on that street for 20 years. Sometimes we're lazy and just don't want to do it.

With all the description changes a large part of it is that someone has to have the desire to want to go through and tweak descriptions or restring NPCs. And while that may be fun for a week or two, it gets old pretty quickly.

And here is the stuff you didn't ask for, details:

In terms of process for changing out the world - any staff member can add things like echo's, scent, night descriptions and so on to a room, or talk scripts, NPC brain activity and so on to an NPC. We usually ask them to get that stuff checked by an admin. Why? Because it helps us catch the typo's and so on up front. It's a pretty simple process. They go change the room, they list rnums in a request, we go check them and let them know if anything needs updating.  This stuff is great and it's on a list of things that we have up for new staff as things they may want to do.

If they want to change other rooms they'd need to let someone know first. If they're just changing descriptions because the description is old, not well written, could use some oomph we'd tell them sure. If they're changing it in a way that will alter what that room is, how it functions, what goes in it, that could very well be a different discussion and take more than a simple check for typo's.

dear producers

why are the waifs of allanak all so goddamn tall

thank you

dorf

Dear dorf, it all comes back to the hair. When you don't have a shining bald pate you can tease up and add oomph to your profile by way of hair artistry.

You know nak's all about that waif, 'bout that waif, 'bout that waif.

Quote from: Nyr on October 29, 2014, 02:32:49 PM
You know nak's all about that waif, 'bout that waif, 'bout that waif.

Oh dear. I would be embarrassed if I weren't laughing.

And for a Question:

1) What is the most interesting/entertaining way that you can recall seeing one of those awesome expensive wagons in game get destroyed/lost?

I have never lost one, but I can always imagine the players of the PC's who are responsible for losing them just having a gut wrenching sense of, "I can't believe I just F*****G DID THAT!".

Does driving a wagon off a fall actually destroy it, or does staff have to add a destroyed wagon object?

Staff has to add a broken wagon object or change the existing wagon object.


source: I drove a wagon into a pit  :-[

Quote from: Desertman on October 29, 2014, 02:37:19 PM

Quote from: Nyr on October 29, 2014, 02:32:49 PM
You know nak's all about that waif, 'bout that waif, 'bout that waif.

Oh dear. I would be embarrassed if I weren't laughing.

And for a Question:

1) What is the most interesting/entertaining way that you can recall seeing one of those awesome expensive wagons in game get destroyed/lost?

I have never lost one, but I can always imagine the players of the PC's who are responsible for losing them just having a gut wrenching sense of, "I can't believe I just F*****G DID THAT!".

A newbie stole the wagon, took it on a joy ride across the Red Desert and then bombed it into THAT gulch. He then laid down and went to sleep - so the pilot NPC slit his throat.

Quote from: Rathustra on October 29, 2014, 03:41:43 PM
so the pilot NPC slit his throat.

That's fucking perfect.

Quote from: Delirium on October 29, 2014, 03:40:32 PM
Staff has to add a broken wagon object or change the existing wagon object.


source: I drove a wagon into a pit  :-[

There isn't any "generic" broken wagon object. Which means we usually either change the existing one or build a new (broken) wagon and replace it (or a bit of both).

Quote from: Rathustra on October 29, 2014, 03:41:43 PM

Quote from: Desertman on October 29, 2014, 02:37:19 PM

Quote from: Nyr on October 29, 2014, 02:32:49 PM
You know nak's all about that waif, 'bout that waif, 'bout that waif.

Oh dear. I would be embarrassed if I weren't laughing.

And for a Question:

1) What is the most interesting/entertaining way that you can recall seeing one of those awesome expensive wagons in game get destroyed/lost?

I have never lost one, but I can always imagine the players of the PC's who are responsible for losing them just having a gut wrenching sense of, "I can't believe I just F*****G DID THAT!".

A newbie stole the wagon, took it on a joy ride across the Red Desert and then bombed it into THAT gulch. He then laid down and went to sleep - so the pilot NPC slit his throat.

You can't be serious.....you just.....can't.

How did this newbie even get access to the wagon to take off in it? Uggh. Uggh. This hurts me inside. It hurts my insides.

So the most effective way to create a lasting impression on the game world is to roll a wagon off a cliff.

Originally posted in Ask the Storytellers (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,48280.msg851499.html#msg851499):

Quote from: knightI'm a software/web developer with a little spare time on his hands. What kind of tool are you guys interested in? What kind of features? I could throw together a quick demo and host it somewhere where you guys could check it out. Then maybe we could talk further.

Shameless self-plugs: my blog, and my projects page (neither of which are really up to date with my current projects, but hey, whatever).

Similar vein to Knight's topic, for anything he/she can't tackle:

Quote from: Talia on October 29, 2014, 01:37:20 PM

It's not like using a word processing program, so it's not actually easy to change anything with little effort. We don't have a sekret magickal web editor to do this stuff for us. (If we had something like the web bio tool, but for objects/rooms/NPCs that would be literal fucking heaven.) There's really no "few words" when it comes to building new portions of the world or tweaking old ones. There are STs who vehemently dislike the building aspects of staffing, and I have to believe it's partly because our tools aren't great.

This sounds like a problem that if fixed could add an enormous surge of productivity for staff.  The same tools could be used for PC character creation as well I suspect, which might improve conversion rates!  What if we crowd sourced a bit of funds for the staff to outsource this project (or ones like it), to give the game a jump start on tech/tools?  

I spoke with someone who runs a software tools building team and explained the general problem.  He said that a great option that he's suggested to small start ups or anyone on a tight budget is to post projects up on sites like www.freelancer.com where coders (mainly in China/India) take on projects at pretty low rates.  For instance, a small project like this may be only $250-$750 USD for an experienced coder to tackle (won't really know until you post it up for people to bid).

Just a thought?

You can't out-source integration.  It would be like... hiring a plumber who can't step foot in your house.

EDIT: If you wanted to be productive in fixing the text editor problem, the best way would be to write MUD client extensions that encapsulate all the Armageddon text editor commands and break up the lines appropriately.

Quote from: Marauder Moe on October 29, 2014, 05:16:41 PM
You can't out-source integration.  It would be like... hiring a plumber who can't step foot in your house.

EDIT: If you wanted to be productive in fixing the text editor problem, the best way would be to write MUD client extensions that encapsulate all the Armageddon text editor commands and break up the lines appropriately.

I understand.  I'm saying outsource work that can be taken out of the house and brought to the shop, so to speak.  Throwing that out there as an option to jump start the tech/tools, without having to recruit new coding staff.  Won't work for many things I'm sure, but there's probably some places it could, and those might be high-value/low hanging fruit items.

I believe I've also heard that the game's code isn't really modular, that you can't just give access to one part. It's all or nothing, which means you need a huge amount of trust before you let anyone work on it.

Quote from: wizturbo on October 29, 2014, 05:25:01 PMI understand.  I'm saying outsource work that can be taken out of the house and brought to the shop, so to speak.  Throwing that out there as an option to jump start the tech/tools, without having to recruit new coding staff.  Won't work for many things I'm sure, but there's probably some places it could, and those might be high-value/low hanging fruit items.

I understand what you're saying.  Software development just doesn't work like that in reality, though.  Programming a text editor is easy.  Plugging it into an existing system that was not designed to readily accept such a thing is hard.

Client extensions are your best bet.  Bonus in that they require no staff assistance or even consent to implement.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on October 29, 2014, 05:26:21 PM
I believe I've also heard that the game's code isn't really modular, that you can't just give access to one part. It's all or nothing, which means you need a huge amount of trust before you let anyone work on it.

There are no doubt areas that are too sensitive/important to let anyone muddle around with.  Making a tool that converts text into a format that Arm accepts doesn't sound like something that requires all the keys to the kingdom to get to work though...  But I'm certainly no expert.  I just wanted to introduce the idea that maybe we could crowd source some help :)

I have the best solution ever!

Sell Armageddon.org (the name) to some crazy and super wealthy end of days Church for like $500000 (something they'll recoup in under a year from all the "donations" they'll receive for that sitename) then buy Armageddonmud.org for like $5 from GoDaddy or whatever, then with your new gained fortune pay yourself a salary, hire a part time coder and give me 10% for that genius idea  ;D

It's an interesting idea wizturbo, and definitely something I have considered (whether we could pay someone to do some dev work for us). In the end that kind of decision I leave up to folks like Nessalin, Morgenes, Tiernan and Nathvaan.  I don't want to weigh in on it not being doable, because I'm not code savvy.

What I can add is that we have had staff work on versions of web based tools for adding things to the game. Nessalin does actually have mostly complete web front ends for NPC making and web based character generation.  The sticking point with these was making them talk with our code base. I believe (and a coder person may want to get in here and correct me if I'm wrong) that part of the solution was moving the game over to a db.

From what I know of the matter (which is less than codey people), I recall the same kind of thing as Adhira--we need more stuff to be stored in the database.

It's an old engine design, absolutely.  One which we have looked at replacing in the past. (e.g. Arm2 / JavaMUG)  That being said, it is nothing like the stock DIKU it started out as.

Just to name a few big improvements:

• That we have Javascript for our unique scripts which are like code-extensions from the base engine, is one sign of our modernization over time.
• That we have XML parsing which we can import data into the engine is another.
• That we have an SQL database which we're migrating things into is another.
• That we have online web-tools for staff builders is another.
• That we have a formal request tool for managing player issues / concerns is another.

Sure, it's always a work in progress and the coding staff take on the workload at our own pace, but the work still gets done.   We're not paid for it, if we were we'd be able to crank out a lot more features in a very short time frame.  We'd be an actual game development company then, but we'd need to make a monetary return on our investment which means Armageddon couldn't be free. 

Outsourcing source code in my experience seldom yields the results you expect.   You do get what you pay for, so if you're cheap with the budget, you get cheap code.  (Typically has to be refactored / rebuilt to the point of new development anyway).  The main point of the question really came down to "Can you break down the coding work and allow outside sources to develop it?"   My answer is that the level of oversight and code-review required to vet any outsourced code may be as intensive if not more  than in-house development. 

Of the main coding staff, each of us have our strengths that we take lead and ownership on.  The work we do, at the risk of boasting, is pretty solid.   We have applied many corporate best practices into our code development, from tools like 'git' to formal review/release cycles.  We've done that in part to help maintain the quality of the code we deliver.   While we still have an occasional crash, we've also seen amazing strides in uptime and reliability.  As much as I'd like more development staff, I'm not prepared to let it go out to the lowest bidder either.  I think we'd end up trading quality for quantity and I prefer to maintain and improve our level of quality.

Thanks Tiernan, that's a really interesting/informative post.  It's hard to tell what kind of expertise and work go into things behind the scenes.

Hmm, that's all good solid information, thanks for sharing. Interesting to learn a little bit about Arm's tech side.

As far as what I was thinking, well... I was thinking that, if you give me the sequence of commands that need to be entered to generate a room or object or something, I could come up with a web front end. You'd input your data, modify it or whatever, and hit "go". The tool would then format the information and spit out a series of commands that would enter the data correct fields for the room/object/whatever.

Of course, I don't know anything about Arm's back end so I don't know if this an applicable idea. Please correct me if I'm wrong. This process wouldn't require any trust whatsoever, because, again, you'd just tell me the order of commands you input to create your object and I can generate a string of text that mimics those commands. You'd then just turn around and copy/paste it into your MUD client/console of choice.

Thoughts? This technique could also be used for character/NPC generation, stuff like that.

We appreciate the offer, but we do prefer to do our coding in-house.  It does require trust, working relationships, and quite a bit more information than what we'd be willing to give players.  If coding type people are interested in coding solutions to help, maybe an area to look at would be things that are not on the staff end of things, but on the player end of things.  Something to help players write character descriptions/spell check them/format them, for instance.

tl;dr  "Coder stuff you probably don't care about"

When it comes to building for the game, that's where the migration into the DB really is the critical factor.   DIKU is all flat data files.  We've evolved past that but not 100%.    It's a work in progress though.   Once we do have it all stored in SQL, we'll be able to maximize our web-building toolset because they already integrate with our DB.

Like, to the point where we could employ something like Ajax to dynamically render a 'building wizard' page that adjusts as you proceed down the various variables involved in object/npc/room creation and surface up the unique values/properties for what you're building as you specify it.    That would give us the power to use some common templates/rules (such as calculate damage for weapons based on weight,  material type, etc.)  It would also let us add validation rules, so we don't have a simple toothpick weapon dealing 2d30 damage.

When folks earlier mentioned the DB, this is what they were most likely thinking about.   It's not that simple an effort to grind through our existing 'flat' schema and get it into something in SQL that we can manage.  But, we're doing it because we see the value it'll give us and the community when we get there.  As for some kind of open port to accept scripted commands for building, that's not the route  I'd prefer.   Mostly because I feel a webtool can be more efficient than someone cranking out a detailed XML file with all the pieces (they believe) identified in it.   I can't envision a reason for a 'bulk uploader' that would be used more than a web-tool building wizard.   Even as we look to port into the DB, it's more that we're bolting on an import & access component to the current engine so that once we get the data into the DB we can be sure that we'll access it properly.

Whoa.  Tiernan, I understood about half of what you said, and could probably do none of it.  And I though my job was  complicated. I had no idea things were so complex and it gives me a new appreciation for things.  Thanks for doing all of that stuff you just mentioned, whatever it really is. 

Quote from: Nyr on October 29, 2014, 08:06:49 PMIf coding type people are interested in coding solutions to help, maybe an area to look at would be things that are not on the staff end of things, but on the player end of things.

And I know a few players have come up with such tools in the past/recently.  We can probably do better about helping make those things accessible on our website (giving you the credit for building the tool) if you are willing to work with us on it.  This would be (somewhat) lower priority in general, but it is something that we can look at.

Quote from: mansa on October 29, 2014, 01:16:51 PM
What is the current process to change some of the world that we see each day?

There's a process.

I'll back up first here.  You are saying:

Quoteit is so easy to change the descriptions with a few words

and then

Quoteyet some of the pre-written world hasn't changed in decades

What I think you are hinting at here looks like changing things for the sake of change.  You are not giving a reason for change here, your stated issue (if there is one) seems to be that the some of the pre-written world hasn't changed in decades.  This is #1 on an informal list I wrote up several years ago entitled "Things Not To Do."

Quote1.  Don't change things just because you can.  You are a staff member of storyteller or administrator rank, but that doesn't mean that you have a blank check to leave your mark on the world.  Think through what you are going to change.  Are you chomping at the bit to do something that players will notice?  I suggest posting pictures of yourself making silly faces on Staff Announcements.  You will get more bang for your buck.  Do you want to leave your mark on the world?  Go over rooms for typos.  It is thankless work and will never be rewarded (or at least not that much), but you will have left a lasting mark.

2.  Don't make things more complicated for the sake of making it better.  If something is simple, it is also simple to manage.  Complicated things are complicated to manage.  Things that are tough to manage often get managed poorly or not at all.  If you feel an urge to make something complicated because you feel it will make it better, reconsider.  Will it make it better?  Better for whom?  Why?  Think of the staff work involved before it, during it, and after it.  Think of the future.

3.  Don't change things and leave them undocumented.  If you change stuff and leave it undocumented, it is worse than doing nothing at all.  Now there's something out there that a few key players and staffers know about, but the rest of us are clueless.  It's cool for them, but definitely not for us, because we can't administrate something we can't see.  Picture it this way:  documentation is like the Constitution of Armageddon, and we are all Supreme Court Justices.  We can't arbitrate disagreements without our constitution.  Without our constitution, we have anarchy.

4.  Don't leave your work unfinished.  It is better not to start at all than to start and leave something unfinished.  Be realistic about your goals and your timeframes.  Every one of us has a real life, even those of us that manage to log on nearly all of the time.  Plan conservatively.  Leave ample time for review.  If calamity or a joyous occasion strikes, let everyone know, and if possible please defer your project to the person you report to.  If you are unable to tie up the loose ends and cut the project loose, that person can then be responsible for whatever must come to pass.

5.  Don't do stuff that the rest of the staff does not know about until after it has been done.  I don't refer to on-the-spot animation, but larger plots, significant documentation changes, and significantly planned animation.  Your peers are here to review.  We want to make sure that your stuff goes off without a hitch.  We want to make sure you've thought of things, or maybe be sure you aren't barking up a tree one of us has already peed on.  I don't mean for you to wait forever for approval for everything.  Important stuff really needs to be signed off or backed officially.

So to your question, the process response would first be:  'why do you want to change this?'   There must be more to a change than change for change's sake.

Quote
What questions must be answered in order to get a change implemented?

For a typo or bug, the current process to change it is "identify the problem, determine if it is a problem, then remediate."
For an idea, the current process is "is this a good idea, is this something we want to do and can do, how much work is involved in doing this, how many steps are there between what exists now and what is suggested, and do we have time to do it now?"

For bigger proposals, each of them follow a set of requirements to make it an official proposal.  These requirements use a template.  Not all of these are required, but they help in shaping all parts of a project.

PROJECT TITLE
PROJECT PURPOSES
WORLD FIT
OBJECTIVES
OUTCOMES
GROUP STRATEGY
BACKGROUND
RESOURCES
TIMETABLE AND COMPLETION DATE
SPONSOR (role: giving clear direction and support)
PROJECT LEADER (role: facilitating the team process and ensuring project and related tasks are completed on time and within constraints)
TEAM MEMBERS
METHOD (strategy to achieve objective and outcomes, how this will look in game)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CAN INCLUDE: NOTES, SAMPLE SCENARIOS

If I ever become a Storyteller can I use the name Mictlantecuhtli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mictlantecuhtli)?

Thanks!

Quote from: Bushranger on October 31, 2014, 05:53:42 AM
If I ever become a Storyteller can I use the name Mictlantecuhtli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mictlantecuhtli)?

Thanks!

Only if you don't mind every staffer intentionally mangling your name on a regular basis.

Quote from: Nyr on October 31, 2014, 02:48:43 PM


Only if you don't mind every staffer intentionally mangling your name on a regular basis.

It's not so bad.  :'(

Just curious since I'm a fan of these boards: Will the GDB ever turn to a PhPbb forum?

Quote from: Iiyola on October 31, 2014, 03:51:32 PM
Just curious since I'm a fan of these boards: Will the GDB ever turn to a PhPbb forum?

That's disgusting, why not just suggest InvisionFree.

InvisonFree isn't that bad.  Why not Discourse?  ;)

Quote from: bcw81 on October 31, 2014, 03:54:50 PM

Quote from: Iiyola on October 31, 2014, 03:51:32 PM
Just curious since I'm a fan of these boards: Will the GDB ever turn to a PhPbb forum?

That's disgusting, why not just suggest InvisionFree.

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

An actual forum upgrade is something Ness and I have talked about, but we've yet to do more than talk about it.  Are there forum options that, as a player, you feel would be excellent to have?  You could make a thread for that if you are interested. 

There are plenty of SMF mods that we could use, but we mostly don't futz around with things like that.

Who is: the level 5 assassin?

Spooky.

QuoteThings that will cost CGP if/when it gets implemented can only be applied for by special app at this time.

Adhira, why the if?  Is this not something we should be hopeful for?

Quote from: Norcal on November 01, 2014, 07:06:57 AM

QuoteThings that will cost CGP if/when it gets implemented can only be applied for by special app at this time.

Adhira, why the if?  Is this not something we should be hopeful for?

Quote from: player staff chat in August 2014ADHIRA:  Ok, bcw.
Bcw81:  Hey there, guys.  My next question has to do with the CGP system and its implementation into the actual character creation, like what you were talking about before the database loss--what was it, back about two years now?  Are we going to see that ever put into place, or are you guys comfortable keeping it in the spec-app only area?
ADHIRA:  Ok.  Well, I'll start that one.  The reason it's special app only now is because we don't have the code.  I wanted to see these extended subguilds in game.  We designed the whole CGP system around both to complement extended subguilds and with bumping up normal skills.  I would like to see that in-game, and Morgenes was working on that.  I believe he got 3/4 of the way through, but there were a few holdups.  Just this week (in fact, just today) we have been tapping Nathvaan on the shoulder and saying, "Hey...Nathvaan...is this something you might possibly be able to complete for us?"  I don't know if Nathvaan would want to do that.
Nathvaan:  Sounds good to me.  Just today got looking at it, though...so...it is in its infancy.
Bcw81:  Alright, that's cool.  It was just something that I'm sure most of the playerbase has been thinking of.  Thank you for your answers!
Nathvaan:  One thing I did do--this has been a couple months back--I did change it.  Anyone who has done an extended subguild since would have seen this.  Now when extended subguilds go in-game, the staff member approving it can set up the extended subguild prior to entering the game without requiring an Admin+ to do it in-game.  There's definitely a lot of work that will go into making the CGP stuff work as it should.
Bcw81:  That answers my question thoroughly, thank you.

That might help a bit.  It is on the list of things to get done eventually, we want it to get done, but at the same time, all beta parts of the project can be handled by staff now.  Expanding the beta to full implementation minus code means that we on staff would have to do the math and tracking every time an application was put in, and all of them would still have to be special applications.   New code to allow more extended subguilds/spec apps is not really the way we want to go right now. 

We'd rather have it implemented as suggested/announced, where (as I recall):

your karma level determines your CGP level
your CGP level regenerates after use, at a rate of one per two weeks
you can select an extended subguild without approval and it automatically deducts from your CGP
you can select a skill bump without approval and it automatically deducts from your CGP
special applications can be used for things outside of your current range (karma + 3), allowing the approver to give you 3 more "burnable" CGP to your account much like they can set a spec_app_guild/spec_app_race that is burned after use

This is all stuff we want to see implemented properly.  Nathvaan has looked at it but I also know some other stuff he is working on directly with regards to code, and those are some needed/immediate desires for other areas.

Thanks!

Idk if it's the same in Diku, but coding things that react to RL measures of time is a pain in the butt

It is a pain in the butt.

Given the recent changes I feel the need to ask...

What good stuff are you guys and gals on? And more importantly, why aren't you sharing? And even more importantly, can we supplement your good stuff stash to ensure the momentum continues?

Also, Tiernan... My heart goes out to you in the flat-file-to-SQL migration. Some parts of the DIKU code just don't wanna cooperate. Keep up the good fight though!

I'm hopped up on life and that I'm going to continue living it. Also that I have a great team of people that are willing to get invested in projects that we've laid down as things that are important to us and we want to work on. It makes a huge difference when your team is all pulling in the same direction. And when stuff is getting done then I've found I'm far more receptive to adding in more stuff.

Same questions for you higher-end people.

Quote from: Taven on November 06, 2014, 01:03:23 PM
I have a few more. I don't think any questions along these lines have been asked yet, though I could have missed them.

• Do you still play a mortal PC, or does staffing take up too much of your time?
• If you play, is it usually mundane or magicker/bendy?
• What sort of restrictions are put on your play? (for example, it's safe to say you can't play in a clan you oversee)
• When you play, do you ever get staff echoes, and is that ever weird? xD

I'm also curious if you feel as higher-up staff it's harder to play a mortal PC or not. Like if you send in a PC report, is it weird to have staff that you work with regularly respond to it? Do you try to avoid making mortals who will change the game in big ways to avoid awkwardness, or is there a good process to make that less of an issue?

I don't still play a PC.  I have a finite amount of time for this hobby, and unfortunately, it is not enough to allow me to play.

Restrictions we have on avatar PCs are the same across the board.  They are (in general, paraphrasing a massive document):

• You can have as many avatars as you want, but only one at karma 5 or above.
• Clan-related apps must be approved same as for a player.  So a tribal role or a role for a specific clan must be approved by clan staff.
• You must go through the same channels a player goes through.  This goes for building, bugs, resurrection, etc.
• No avatars in clans that you administrate.  If plotlines need to be advanced there, build an NPC for it instead.
• Be considerate when playing in someone else's clan.  Don't create extra work for them.  Try not to discuss your character with your clan staff--this creates pressure and an atmosphere that is simply not cool/not fun to work in.  Be a model of a good player.
• Don't use knowledge gained as staff with your PC and vice versa.  If it's an issue that staff needs to handle, report it duly to clan staff to handle (see all of that above stuff).
• No sponsored leadership roles, for the most part.  The exception is a resource avatar, which has to be signed off by clan staff and an admin+.  If approved, there are additional restrictions on them having to do with conflict.

I once created a system because of work I was doing with my avatar, but that was all done as a player (i.e., talk to clan staff, submit the idea to them, they like it/it moves forward and they add it as clan staff).

I also was once put in the awkward position of creating a mastercraft intended for my PC.  My PC had commissioned the work to be done, and someone was mastercrafting it.  At the time I was staffing Salarr and there was no one else there on staff.  After I got permission from an admin+ (I think it was Vanth), I built it and sent it over to the PC that created it.

The question about making mortals who will change the game in big ways may itself be a bit of an awkward question.  Seeing as how our PCs are just the same as your PCs with the additional expectation that staff work comes first, it is probably less likely nowadays that a staff-created PC will change the world in any significant way.  We've got things to do staff-side that involve changing the game in big ways already.

Nyr's answer pretty much covers how things are for me.

Every six months or so I try and make a PC and join in the fun. What I find is that I just don't have the time to play a PC that gets deeply involved in storyline, and that makes me frustrated. I seem to always end up joining the byn, and then I miss 70% of the contracts, and end up being that guy no one wants to take along on the job because his ride skill still sucks. I would say that it's not that staffing takes up too much of my time, rather than I also have a set amount of time I can devote to the game, it has to balance with my work, family and my other hobbies, so when I have that time available I feel it is better spent performing my staff duties.

When I do manage to play I usually play mundanes.

Nyr already covered the restrictions. These are things we do for everyone. For me personally, on the rare occasions I do play a PC I try not to put myself in a position where others are relying on my character. So I won't take that aide position, for example, because I can't guarantee that I'll be logging in every day.

As far as having a PC that can make a big change on the world. The great part of staffing is that we get to work with others (staff and players) to make big changes in the world. The sad thing is that it will not be via a PC. It would be very hard for a staff PC to make a world changing impact on the game because of the kinds of roles we ask staff to restrict themselves to.

Does staff ever play city elves to give some of us newer players an example of "how it's done"? I think that would be cool, because all we have now are, no clans (other than Kurac, keep your three small, filthy necker), lower than breed social status, no riding and no desert run. It might help cure some of the apathy toward what seems a cool concept to play out, but often ends up a lonely role with your vNPC buddies and in order to interact you have to go out of your way because there's so few elven PCs to interact with and, no clans. I enjoy playing one, I enjoy trying to adhere to the mindset, but I can see the potential for quite a bit more, and think a big part of why people shy away from these roles is because of these perceived drawbacks, lack of examples, they say the mindset is "just too alien", but it seems to me that the dwarven mindset would be even moreso, although more easily adjusted for different concepts because your focus isn't automatically set to "steal everything ever, and somehow keep my tribe safe".

Not really, no.

Quote from: Nyr on November 06, 2014, 02:02:07 PMInteresting stuff

Thanks for the insight on those rules! I'm curious, though, what's a "resource avatar"?

Quote from: Adhira on November 06, 2014, 02:33:10 PMI seem to always end up joining the byn, and then I miss 70% of the contracts, and end up being that guy no one wants to take along on the job because his ride skill still sucks.

Awww. I did find that response pretty amusing, though...

The young, muscular man says in southern-accented sirihish:
    "I haven't ridden much, but I can come along, right guys? Guys? Come back--!"

[awhile later]

The ancient, muscular man says in southern-accented sirihish:
      "Guys, can I come now? Pleeease? I promise I'll keep up."

The strapping, statuesque, scarred sergeant says in bynner-accented sirihish:
      "Ain't got to time for you if you *still* don't know which end of a beetle the reins go on."

Quote from: Taven on November 06, 2014, 03:48:04 PM

Quote from: Nyr on November 06, 2014, 02:02:07 PMInteresting stuff

Thanks for the insight on those rules! I'm curious, though, what's a "resource avatar"?

Typically this would be a role that is needed but not already filled by a player, called for by a staff team, and responded to by an available staffer.  It serves a particular purpose.  It's a bit like a sponsored role but for staff.  These are rarely available or needed (NPCs mostly fill the need), but they might be needed from time to time, in cases where we want to be sure it looks like a PC, or where using a PC for the role assists staff in fulfilling the need.

I wish I could play more! But I simply don't have enough time for it. :(

In general, I prefer mundane PCs and I prefer "lonely" roles - rinthers, city-elves, unimportant (unclanned) hunters, random nobodies.

Quote from: Molten Heart on November 13, 2014, 10:41:07 PM
Obviously creating a city state is very unlikely, but I've seen player created cairns in the Red Desert as trade route markers.,  How do players start and follow through with the process to do this?  What steps should they take?

Quote from: whitt on November 14, 2014, 09:20:16 AM

Quote from: Molten Heart on November 13, 2014, 10:41:07 PM
Obviously creating a city state is very unlikely, but I've seen player created cairns in the Red Desert as trade route markers.,  How do players start and follow through with the process to do this?  What steps should they take?

Easily found out IC actually. Ask around.

That's not really an answer.

ICly, anyone can stack some rocks up to make a marker but OOCly it's going to be gone with the next crash or reboot.

Quote from: HavokBlue on November 14, 2014, 10:10:43 AM
That's not really an answer.

ICly, anyone can stack some rocks up to make a marker but OOCly it's going to be gone with the next crash or reboot.

I see what you mean. You want the OOC process the player has to go through with staff detailed. Meh. Sorry, it's early.

Quote from: whitt on November 14, 2014, 09:20:16 AM

Quote from: Molten Heart on November 13, 2014, 10:41:07 PM
Obviously creating a city state is very unlikely, but I've seen player created cairns in the Red Desert as trade route markers.,  How do players start and follow through with the process to do this?  What steps should they take?

As far as I can recall, no one has actually set up a trade route marker as a player in the time I've been on staff, which is more than 7 years.  Maybe it happened before.  There is no official process for setting up trade route markers, and I don't think a player has actually set out to do that anytime during my time on staff.  How does a player create a cairn?  I don't think anyone has tried to do that in the last several years either.  Maybe be a mastercrafter of stone, work with your clan staff in your tribal group, and see if they'll work with you to create something more long-lasting than what you can do IC now (which is collect rocks and put them in a pile with an arrange description).  If you're not in an already-established staff-supported, larger tribe, and you're just wanting to build something out in the middle of nowhere and make your own permanent camp, we've covered that before (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,43940.msg698295.html#msg698295).  At this time, this is not a more sandbox-oriented building game where you have unrestricted access to "build" what you want where you want and have it be permanent.  Perhaps with coding improvements and review in the future, this may be something that can be done.

The exceptions that may be there are few and far between, or prior to this era of the game.  If you believe you're an exception, then play exceptionally, and work with staff in a constructive, positive way.  You'll also need the understanding that beyond mastercrafts, it is rare these days to have something added to the game for just one player.  That's largely why we went with creating a system for players to create their own city-based clan--the rules are the same for everyone, and it would allow for IC reaction.  That's why we (eventually) made clayworking a craft skill.  Players wanted to use it, staff wanted to use it, but allowing one player to use it would mean setting up a system by which all players could use it.  There were ideas towards that end, but ultimately, code was the savior for this particular player desire.

If there's a deeper question here, I'd encourage more elaboration, because I've already rambled on a while assuming I'm reading the real intent behind this question about cairns and route markers.  It seems that the question must be deeper (unless trade route markers are the next player fad), but there are so many "if's" in trying to figure out what the real question is that I'd rather ask a question in response and save time on my part and yours:  what is the real question?  Did I hit upon it above?

It was done more by a clan than by a person.

First you need to build a pillar out of stone (or clay bricks now). Then you need to murderize a defiler, clean out their skull and nail it on to the pillar. Voila you now have a travel marker!

What determines whether you choose to log in visibly on the Who list and invisibly?

Staff are required to stay invisible when on the port. The only time exceptions are made are if we are speaking to someone directly and wish them to be able to see us. We just feel it's more polite than them having a conversation with 'someone'.

So if you're logged in visibly then Someone's in trouuuuuuuubbbbbbbblllllllle?

A player once suicided their PC on me when I was talking with them privately and had to go suddenly afk for a few minutes--couldn't be helped at all.  I came back and was quite confused to see a dead body.  I scrolled up and sure enough, they'd gotten bored in the short period of time there and suicided themselves by attacking the equivalent of the most buff NPC anyone has ever attacked ever.

A resurrection was not granted, as I recall.

Quote from: Nyr on November 14, 2014, 02:19:26 PM
A player once suicided their PC on me when I was talking with them privately and had to go suddenly afk for a few minutes--couldn't be helped at all.  I came back and was quite confused to see a dead body.  I scrolled up and sure enough, they'd gotten bored in the short period of time there and suicided themselves by attacking the equivalent of the most buff NPC anyone has ever attacked ever.

A resurrection was not granted, as I recall.

Was this character's name Leeroy of the lesser merchant House Jenkins?

Quote from: MeTekillot on November 14, 2014, 01:42:04 PM
So if you're logged in visibly then Someone's in trouuuuuuuubbbbbbbblllllllle?

Not necessarily!

you might be in trouble or you might just be special.  ;) :-*