It isn't Brokkr's fever dream. We are a team. The initial push to look at the karma system came from me. We brainstormed the essential requirements then opened it up for player insights followed by a staffside discussion. Somewhere along the way Haldol came up with a pretty solid list of criteria. I took that into a Google Doc and played about with it for a couple of weeks, fleshed it out, changed stuff up, ideated over how the process could work then dumped a document in front of Hal and Brokkr. Hal went through it, tweaked it, suggested changes. Then Brokkr. Then I did again. Then we argued for days (healthy debate) over all the details and niggles then finally it was OK. Then it went in front of the Admins and they went through and fed back and then it was tweaked again. Then we got sidelined for a bit, circled back for more rounds of debate and tweaks. And now, here we are.

So that's how that happened. And we are still tweaking as we get more feedback from you guys.

Yes, it should absolutely save staff time, though not necessarily only in direct ways. The big win is not having to hash out every point. STs are empowered with more autonomy. This means less time on bureaucratic back-and-forths and more time on port, actively engaging with players. Admin+ involvement for 6-8 is now just a quick check-in rather than a drawn-out discussion. The three-month reviews should be streamlined too, just an ST, maybe with an Admin, doing a check-up (or anyone else). They're current, focused on what's happening now, rather than sifting through a player's history. It's about immediate recognition: "I am playing an awesome mage right now, watch me be great, I'm totally nailing this shit." It shifts our energy from administration to engagement, which is where we all prefer to be and where we need to be for most of our other activities anyway.

In the current system, a player might request a review from 2 to 3 based on three different criteria tied to actions taken on their PCs over the past couple of years. This poses a challenge! It's difficult to verify, discuss and, at times, we simply lack the necessary information. Sometimes we can get locked up with these kinds of requests for a very long time.

And then there's this: we're hoping that this, along with other gradual changes and shifts in the culture, will help realign focus on the roleplay, improve communication within the community, and improve staff-player relations. If we can cut down on just a fraction of the time spent on internal staff debates, player complaints, staff complaints and all the energy they drain, then this change will have paid for itself. We're also discussing smaller changes to staff culture to encourage more 'staff-on-port' activity and less 'play-by-request', a subtle yet tough shift because it's so ingrained in both our workflow and player expectations, but it goes hand in hand with the changes to this system.

Thank you for everyone who is engaging with the process and providing feedback and debating things in a respectful way, it's awesome to see.

So I've been gone awhile.

I'm mostly as a 0 karma individual who is around infrequently not likely to be affected by this change much except in positive ways.

I want to say something in this thread though, regardless of those two facts. Because I am mostly an outside perspective, perpetually.

1. Please stop thinking about it in terms of good and bad classes. EVERY class is what you make it. EVERY class is how you RP it. The power level should not matter to you. Unless you are WANTING to play purely for the power and not the RP. And that goes in counter to the intentions of the game.

2. Those of you arguing against this. Some of you need to stop being so selfish. Don't think
 about these changes in what YOU stand to gain . And think of them, in terms of what WE all, now, and in the future stand to gain.

3. If you are confident in your RP, if you are confident in your ability to scheme and plot, and execute on treachery, betrayal and murder. This change will cause no permanent issues for you. And if you do the karma review initially, you will, in a situation this is operating as it should, not have any issues at all.

Next, my own thoughts on the system.

This is a very well considered change. I like that they are responding to critiques of just when you can apply for certain roles. As that was one of my initial concerns for it looking it over.

My only concern I can think of at the moment, beyond addressing the community backlash above, is that there are no criteria for loss of a karma listed. I would love to see a concrete set of examples. A sort of what not to do, rather than an assumptive echo of the what to do's.

EDIT: Actually found another concern, the ordering seems slightly of. I would actually put dwarf into the category of 3 karma, as they are far less human in perspective, and require a grounding in just what is possible and impossible in the setting. As well, their relative power level is a touch higher than half elf or elf. And it does give a kind of one thing at a time progression to karma 0, 1 and  2. I would bump up desert elves, and Thyrzn to 3 Karma. As again they are more alien to play, and more rough to play from what I have heard than other races.
My proposed progression would look like.
0 Karma
All mundane classes and human

1 karma
Half-elf, city elf
Can put in Specapps

2 karma
Dwarf
All Touched Mages
May apply for GMH and noble roles

3 karma
Desert elf, Thryzn
Full Guild Vivaduan
May apply for Templar roles

I gave it a go for what I think an interesting ladder looks like:


(Click for a link to a bigger version of the picture)

I'm currently taking a little break after a frustrating death, but I wanted to chime in and say that I absolutely hate this.  Every aspect of it.  -Maybe- going to a 1-5 system, and kicking everyone with any karma (or over a year of playtime) +1-2 karma, but the currently proposed system is frustrating, disheartening, and overwrought.  You're looking for ways to reduce staff oversight/workload, not increase it.

A much better/easier change would just be to move dwarves/half-elves/c-elves to 1k, and be more judicious in lowering karma on accounts that use their karma poorly.

Ok, I think I've beat into the ground that I don't like this change.

However, if there was one thing that I could wave a magick wand and change in all this it would be the loss of karma part.

I would HOPE that instead of just immortalchatting or whatever and going Pariahs outta control take his karma they would talk to me first. My fear is that the way it's being talked about they are going to just remove karma and send a message after the fact versus try to investigate or correct behavior.

So I've never had an instance where someone goes, hey you're spamcasting, hey you're spending too long sparring, hey you're never using think or feel or hey (insert good rp thing).  But I do talk to people via discord and via PMs and have heard of a few such instances where that good feedback, don't power game, emote more etc was given AFTER they yoinked their points.

I just would like removing Karma to be a thing that is for obvious failure to improve.  So you tell me today I can't do Y, I say fuck you through my actions and do Y after we spoke, that shows that I don't want to listen.  But if you just yank my shit with no conversation and just a note in the request tool telling me, we lowered your karma by a point because you did Y.  That's a gut punch and assumption they are specially telling you fuck off.

Be VERY judicious when you remove the Karma is my only wish because you're obviously going forward with this horrible idea and while I'll still be here to say, I told ya so, hopefully if you're very careful there will still be other players to read me say, I told you so...

One issue with the current system, is the lack of granularity. You remove 3 karma for example, and you remove 1/3rd of the character options from someone. Roughly speaking. Is that warranted? Not in most cases.

It also lacks a suspend policy. Say I screw up bad. For 6 months, I am locked out of karma reviews, and realistically, currently, for a year or more, because the staff are going to go right to that negative note, and say, "Can we really trust them with this much power."

Granularity helps with that. It also helps to soften the blow of losing karma.

I will say; While this is not my preferred way to have this type of system done, I described that in another thread. It is a decent compromise.

If this actually does streamline the karma review process and makes it easier for players to obtain karma (as well as staff handing it out), then I'm all for it.  I went back over some previous posts and the clear, well defined criteria for each step up makes sense. 

Is it perfect? There's always room for iterative improvement in any system.  I think it's a step in the right direction from where we are currently.

My proposal makes you understand the game world before you play the non-human races with non-human mentalities, but doesn't change anything else.

The aspect that reduces staff workload is being more free to give/remove karma, not the [expanded] 1-10 aspect.  Staff are declaring a change that punishes a group of players in a whiplash overreaction to what seems, to me, to be current staff being uncomfortable with simply karma docking bad actors. 

Quote from: Lizzie on November 08, 2023, 10:55:18 PM

Quote from: Pariah on November 08, 2023, 09:11:03 PMI would HOPE that instead of just immortalchatting or whatever and going Pariahs outta control take his karma they would talk to me first.

If you have 10 karma and can play that role, it's because the staff has determined already that you know better. If you prove that you don't know better, then you lose the point - and can earn it back.

That's fundamentally flawed if you really care about helping improve the player, you don't just go, "We don't like that, we are taking your toys away." without telling them you don't like what they did.

I don't even own a kid, but my gf does, if her kid some shit off the wall, I don't just go take away half his room of toys and then tell him why I did it.  I'll sit that little fucker down and go, Look, this isn't acceptable for X and Y, you do it again, I'm gonna take away all your shit.

While I agree we can disagree on this, what makes more sense, having people walking on egg shells afraid to do anything for fear of loss or having a culture of understanding between staff and players which actually shows that they give a fuck about the player and their roleplay.

This is why I think a lot of spec app leaders play too safe, they are scared shitless they are gonna incur the wrath of staff and lose their Karma or their role.

This post has been edited to combine the discussion points together.

But to walk up and slap them and take away their Karma with a little note that goes, "You did this thing we don't like, you can earn it back later if you act right peasant."  It could be a misunderstanding, it could have reason you weren't privy to or didn't watch from your invisible castle in the sky.

The difference is assuming positive intent and negative intent.

That's something I think they've done wrong for a looong looong time.

BUT, again, I'm just some asshole who plays this game. I have no say and no power above having an opinion.  Staff gonna do what staff gonna do at the end of the day.  All I'm attempting to point out is that the act of taking Karma should be done as a last resort, not wielded like a club.

Being 10 Karma means you should know better doesn't work.

Quote from: Pariah on November 08, 2023, 11:20:27 PM...
But to walk up and slap them and take away their Karma with a little note that goes, "You did this thing we don't like, you can earn it back later if you act right peasant." (Paraphrasing but that's how I imagine it feels.)

It could be a misunderstanding, it could have reason you weren't privy to or didn't watch from your invisible castle in the sky.

The difference is assuming positive intent and negative intent.

That's something I think they've done wrong for a looong looong time which was probably why certain tyrants lasted so long in high level leadership positions.

Usiku explained this already. It requires more than one staff member and a detailed request telling you why, and how to fix it. I am sure warnings will handled out long before a deduction unless you are a complete goob, and disregard rules willynilly.

Quote from: Tailong on November 08, 2023, 11:27:09 PMUsiku explained this already. It requires more than one staff member and a detailed request telling you why, and how to fix it. I am sure warnings will handled out long before a deduction unless you are a complete goob, and disregard rules willynilly.

I hope you're right, again I trust staff way more than most if you look at the threads about them playing and shit, but I don't trust them 100% with being objective.  I've had multiple times I've been moderated for bullshit reasons, complained and hit with the "thin blue line" (Cops protecting cops if you're not aware of what the term is) of "We support our moderators." without a single look at things, so to think that if ST #50 goes, Pariah did this thing I don't like, take his Karma, is going to elicit any sort of investigation outside of, We trust our staff... Is a bit of a stretch.  It's just gonna be rubber stamped to hell and back.

Trust is a two way street. if you cannot trust staff to treat you fairly. Perhaps seek out other places where you can. Because without trusting staff there is little you can do of note on a game like this

I understand staff's desire to have a set of regimented systems that they can point to. This is how things end up overwrought, attempting to plan for every contingency and create a plan they feel will streamline it. This plan's 1-10 change is destined to fail, because there are now 10 individual levels to mark and weigh and kvetch about instead of just a few. We're reverting back to the old system that was changed because it was ineffective and wasted a bunch of staff time. It feels comfortable, and there appears to be logic to it, but it simply isn't.

It's a lot easier to sort something into 4 roughly analogous piles than it is to sort them into 11. (0-3, 0-10).

Staff are people and they can make mistakes. Systems like this universally create more make work. The answer is to simply be more willing to dock karma from bad actors. I offered an alternate system that let them still pull dwarves, etc. up from 0k, as in their proposed system.

my thoughts, i guess

1.) creating, displaying, and enforcing clearly-understandable rules and procedures makes staff's life much easier, not harder. there are already values a game's staff has and they are already being enforced in some mutable way. it's better for players to understand the values staff has; and most of any rp mu* staff's time is spent dealing with the emotions of players. being able to point to a clear rule sets expectations, limits confusion, and limits exposure to negativity on both sides.

2.) rewarding the values that staff wants in a game leads to an increase in the strength of those values. here those values seem to be things that i assume we generally want as the negativity seems to be more about staff having the encouragement to reward players they think are good at things like creating roleplay for other people, making complex characters, and spending personal time doing shit like updating help files or whatever. the alternative is staff not rewarding that? that seems more dumb.

3.) staff could always remove karma. or ban. or whatever. that's not new.

4.) nobody has to interact with one another out of character but if one chooses to then one should expect to be judged by regular societal standards. AAA PC/console games have rules in their chat rooms and limit play based on them, and there are rules in the living rooms of friends when people come over to hang out. being an asshole is actually a choice one makes and choices tend to have accompanying results or consequences like anything else.

5.) the karma requirements are maybe half as strict as the requirements for remaining in good enough standing to even play some roleplay games. the top points are for things like "making a complex character that has a personality AND thinks thoughts sometimes," "use magic," "interact with the world believably." also time-wise it's now a quicker advancement schedule to the top for new players which is great for new players fuck yeah!

I believe these are the problems with a small scale system:

1. Removal of karma is impossible to have be proportional to the scale of the rules broken in the current system. Ergo increasing karma loss for people will have a net negative and outsized effect

2. Moving the fantastical or inhuman races to higher karma without also lowering the karma time l. And removing reviews. Will have a net negative impact on every newbie that enters the game from that moment in.

3. Adding karma is slow. And a six month active play requirement is often more than some can manage.  As an example. I have never been able to send a karma review through even having played for multiple years now.


This post has been Moderated

The current system has a list of 7 criteria, each with its own list of requirements, so it's not actually that far off the 10, but the examples/requirements just haven't been made public (I don't think?). Then those of you familiar with the system will know, you need one of the criteria for 1 karma, 3 for 2 karma and 6 for 3 karma. We can and do have reviews where players will tick off criteria without moving up a karma level. It means the journey from 2 to 3, can be very very long. It can take multiple reviews. 18 months? 24? More? Without getting to open up new options? Personally I think this sucks.

Now, a big theme prior to this announcement and a big theme of the feedback here has been around staff docking karma. If you hadn't gathered, we hate this, especially with the current system, you can be reversing something a player has worked towards for two years or more? It's a BIG deal. People who have had karma removed over the last few years (maybe.. 2 or 3 people?) will know the kind of things it has been removed for. However, we frequently have players complaining about the behaviour of some 3k players, not necessarily major things, but things which perhaps represent a failure to meet the expectations of our game and community. But their actions often do not warrant the loss of 3 separate criteria points. If you dock karma, then it's heavy handed and does not align with the system. If you were to remove the criteria point they failed to deserve due to their actions, they may not even lose the karma point if they have all seven criteria, they almost certainly wouldn't lose a point if they were lingering at the top end of 2.

Also, something our current system was lacking was really any expectation for any standard of RP beyond the very very basic. The RP point is awarded very early usually, for staying in character, for using emotes and so on. This player understands the basic concept of role playing. That is it. So if we get repeated complaints or observe, for example, that a very experienced player is failing to account for the virtual population around them? We absolutely expect our top karma players to do that. Why? We didn't give karma for that. So we can't take away karma for that. We can talk to them, but if nothing changes we still can't really do anything.

The current system does not really allow for us to remove karma at all, not in a way that is fair or in a way that could be fairly applied to all players. The current system has absolutely no guidelines or mechanic that we can follow in order to do this. We were fairly hamstrung. Now, we don't particularly want to take away karma, in fact we rather dislike it, but we had reached a point where a *lot* of players have 3 karma, not all of them were behaving well or representing the game the way players expected, and we were facing an awful lot of backlash from the player base about 'allowing' these things to happen.

Allowing karma to be removed in a way that is fair, easier and less impactful/dramatic was one of the requirements that needed to be met by the new system. It should be a fairly minor and easily reversible thing to go from 7 to 6 or 8 to 7 and so on.

Dear members of USSR State Planning Committee, or shortly staff. You guys love to legislate for sure. For a game where people just want to enjoy and RP, you are blowing it out of proportion. 10 karmas, and "Players may request karma reviews every three months." I will definitely not beg for karma every 3 months.
A bad design, a terrible design.

Quote from: Usiku on November 09, 2023, 05:09:09 AMNow, we don't particularly want to take away karma, in fact we rather dislike it, but we had reached a point where a *lot* of players have 3 karma, not all of them were behaving well or representing the game the way players expected, and we were facing an awful lot of backlash from the player base about 'allowing' these things to happen.

You will never please everyone. Players will sling shit, feel victimized, etc etc, regardless of what you do. Folks generally want things to go in their favour, and feel it's unfair if it doesn't. From my experience, this type of entitlement and cynicism just gets worse with age, and our playerbase has certainly aged.

To me, this feels a lot like trying to manage a tenured, unionized work force. For any with experience, it's not fun, so kudos to staff.

Why not, instead of a complicated method of giving and awarding karma, have a very simple karma system, and a very simple discipline system. Everyone won't agree with it, but at least everyone should understand it, and it should be transparent. Transparency solves many problems.

For example: 3 karma system and 3 points discipline system per karma. A discipline point sunsets after twelve months. If you get three points in 12 months, you lose one point of karma.

If I'm a player and I receive a message from Staff that I have been issued one point of discipline for failing to communicate a PK, or 2 points for GDB conduct, or whatever, I may disagree, but I know exactly where I stand. All I have to do is behave for 12 months, and I can keep all my karma and I'm back up to a clean slate.

Quote from: najdorf on November 09, 2023, 07:07:51 AMDear members of USSR State Planning Committee, or shortly staff. You guys love to legislate for sure. For a game where people just want to enjoy and RP, you are blowing it out of proportion. 10 karmas, and "Players may request karma reviews every three months." I will definitely not beg for karma every 3 months.
A bad design, a terrible design.

This. Exactly this. Najdorf, will you marry me? 💍

This game is so obsessed red tape and even their solutions when admitting what they suffer from is too much red tape is... to come up with even more red tape! Keep It Simple Stupid should be the one rule that umbrellas all the rest, at this point. It can't be that hard to just be a decent staffer.

I'm not even thar opposed to the karma change aside from being firm in my belief that it won't really change much. You're welcome to prove me wrong 12 months down the road and I will gladly applaud you. Till that time comes though, you'll understand why I'm skeptical.

I do however want to reiterate that giving zero race options to new players is an insult and disrespectful. One option is not an option, unless by option you mean "take it or leave it". Whatever change you hope to see from this, however positive, will be so miniscule that it begs the question to all of this: can't ya'll just get back to writing stories for the game? Seriously, give the coded changes a break for an entire year and just spin over arching, IC world stories and you'll be surprised how many players flock to the MUD again.

I've unlocked the thread.   I've edited and moderated a bunch of the posts.

I've said this before, and it bears repeating:
The General Discussion Board is not a debate.  You can't "win" conversations with logic and passion.  The discussion board is where we discuss topics as a community, and the community is varied in opinion, thought, and feelings.  We are anonymous players typing into computer devices about our passion of a particular roleplaying game.

As soon as you start tearing into another posters argument, talking about "straw man", "ad hominem", or other logical fallacies, I will remove your posts.  That sort of attitude is not welcome.

Looking over the adjustments. The staff clearly took my heartfelt objection seriously. And I'm thankful for that.

Quote from: mansa on November 09, 2023, 08:35:11 AMAs soon as you start tearing into another posters argument, talking about "straw man", "ad hominem", or other logical fallacies, I will remove your posts.  That sort of attitude is not welcome.

If you can't tear apart their argument? How are you supposed to show your side of things?  Are we just supposed to have disjointed one sided comments like.

I love the new system because of X thing. - Poster 1

I hate the new system because of Y thing. - Poster 2

That's not having a conversation, that's just spouting out random statements.  The sky is blue, Grass is green, we aren't talking that's not how human conversation works.

If someone tells me something I disagree with, I then tell them why I disagree with it, why their thinking is flawed or whatever method of showing them the fault in their logic.

I do agree with the whole strawman etc bullshit as that's normally used by people who can't talk their way out of an argument to save their lives.  BUT, do you want this to be a discussion where people are sharing their views and why they have that view versus another or just an echo chamber where people give grand monologues while not risking to attack an argument as flawed?

I feel what you're trying to avoid is people making other people "feel stupid" which is noble in a way, but not how the real world works.  If one of my employees comes up with a stupid idea he thinks is great and I explain why it's not, and he feels stupid that's just a side effect of the process.  Why is this kindergarten or sesame street now?

Pariah,

I need to constantly remind the community that we are not a debate, because we aren't. A debate requires a stage, an audience, talking points, cheering, a winner, and a loser, and that all the participants of the debate to agree to the rules of the debate. That mode of theatre isn't the ArmageddonMUD General Discussion Board.

You can disagree with each other, that is fine, and encouraged.

What isn't fine is the intent of the disagreement.  To answer the question - "Why are you disagreeing with me?"  Clearly, some members of the community post on the general discussion board with their experiences, and do not want to have their personal experiences questioned.  That happens frequently. 


An example of this would be:
"My character was killed by a templar every time I enter Allanak, so I avoid playing in Allanak."

To question someone's experience would be to say:
"Actually, that hasn't happened in 6 months!"



Here's another example:
Pariah:  "I want the staff to tell players they are being bad BEFORE they dock karma, so that players can course correct and become better."
Response:  "They do."
Pariah:  "No, they don't."



Clearly, you have stated your complaint, a complaint I agree with, which is that the humans that are staff avoid conflict with the players and they don't punish the players enough.  A better question would be - how will this new system allow punishments on the players /better/ than the old system?  Is there different techniques and coded features of the new system that can distribute punishments?

But it doesn't solve the human aspect of it - how do we change the culture of the staff members to empower them to course correct the playerbase?  How do we change the culture of the playerbase so that they don't throw shit everywhere when they get slapped on their wrist for doing something bad?  Players are threatening to quit the game because they lose karma, and that will always occur every single time you attempt to course correct.  How can we make that better as a community?

I'll preface this by saying, I haven't been playing for some time.

Just took a look at all of these changes and to be perfectly honest, this cements me never coming back. I now get four karma. I have been playing this game since Sept of 2000. There are so many roles I've never been able to experience due to Karma requirements and with even more options being removed from my sphere of play...I just don't see a path forward. I'm in my forties with a job and a wife. I don't have the time to put into trying to get noticed for more karma after this long to play the things I've wanted to try since I was in high school. It doesn't feel particularly nice.

Hopefully this is what the current game community needs and wants, I've no idea. I just know how I feel about it and I won't be coming back.

I'm currently in a meeting so can't be very verbose, but just go back and count the number of players who seem to like this and the amount who outright hate it.

While I understand there are people who don't engage outside of playing the game or request tool usage who might skew the numbers but even without them the resounding response has been bad.  Yet as Brokkr said it's not going to stop the train from moving forward.

But appears we are more worried about semantics and wordplay on the board than we are of trying to bring in new or old players.  It's a damn shame.