So many ideas...

[Lizzie]

I get it - people have ideas on stuff they'd love to see changed in the game.

But when does it become too much? I think this is why I've been so "push-backish" lately on the GDB. I see thread after thread, topic after topic, nothing but "let's change this" and "let's change that" and "let's add this" and "let's nerf that."  Much of the "here's what IS, NOW" is being lost in the "let's change/nerf/add" threads.

It's like some of you don't really want to play Arm. You want to play some other game that you can't find somewhere else, and so instead you want Arm to change to be that other game.

I play Arm because I like Arm. Not because I want to play something else.

Just - I wish people would give it a rest for awhile, and spend more time playing what IS, and less time posting about what ISN'T.

[Pale Horse]

I feel you, Lizzie.

But..we're a community of nerds.  I'm afraid we're always going to say "I LOVE this game, but it would just be better, IF...."

We need an Alpha Nerd to set us strait but we're eternally jockeying for position.

[Miradus]

It drives my wife crazy when she tries a new recipe and I say, "This is great, but it would be even better with zucchini."

You're fighting against human nature.

[Yam]

You're kind of a curmudgeon. That's fine.

[bardlyone]

It occurs to me there is very likely a link between those threads and the 'world too static' thread. Maybe if people felt the world were more dynamic, they would rally less for fewer changes.

/my 2 sids

[Lizzie]

It occurs to me there is very likely a link between those threads and the 'world too static' thread. Maybe if people felt the world were more dynamic, they would rally less for fewer changes.

/my 2 sids

Not sure if this is a joke..but just in case it isn't:

Static: no change
Dynamic: constant change.

People who feel the world is too static are people who always want change.
By definition.

I'm saying - there IS change. The game DOES change. I think some people just refuse to sit back, relax, and experience the changes we have for awhile, before demanding more change. They're not satisfied with the existing changes, and want change for its own sake, it seems. Change is great - gradual, organic, forward-thinking change. Not sweeping change just because "my character is [insert whine here]" and "I can't [insert thing you can't do there]".

[bardlyone]

That's an awful lot of presupposing notions on people, like their motivations, and how they feel, too. I'm not sure how you're coming up with it. Do you think if someone wanted, say, to be able to forage ocotillo at the shield wall, that allowing people to use the symbol command would actually address that? And so what if they do want to forage those bulbs at the shield wall? Seems like you're assuming it's because they want or need ocotillo on this character and can't get it, rather than just listening to it without reading someone's supposed intentions into it. Maybe they just think that ocotillo should be forageable there because in other places where similar things are forageable, it's forageable, but it's not now, and the world is inconsistent due to that, or they're feeling out whether or not the idea would even be entertained to try and decide between 6 different possible plots moving forward, or so on.

What I'm saying is: There have been a lot of mechanics changes, yes. Outside of the near-constant change in Tuluk for years before it closed (No longer a part of the player accessible world, so may as well not ever have happened), and some black/red robes shuffling around (something that directly affects, what, 3 templar pcs, and not because they got to be part of the change, but because the npcs they answer to are different), there hasn't been a whole lot of actual change in a while. Red Fangs have been gone the better part of a decade now, so you can't possibly be referring to that... and wasn't it also years ago now that the gypsy plot happened? Oh... spice is cheaper? What will we do with all these IN GAME WORLD CHANGES. Seems to me like maybe you're more uncomfortable with the code changing than the world, because that's the lion's share of what's changed. I mean, people were still trying to make merchants and player groups long before the changes to make it codedly possible became a thing.

[manipura]

I'm with you, Lizzie, you're just much more vocal about it whereas I grumble quietly to myself.
Honestly I got tired of the fact that openly opposing what I feel are unnecessary changes usually brings about a chorus of:
"You veterans just like to shit on newer players"
"Older players have this -win- mentally and keeping the game very hard is just a way for them to keep winning"
"Vets don't want any changes because then they lose their edge"
...et cetera et cetera.

So now I mostly just shut up and let everyone else yammer about whether everything should be spelled out for every player, whether the things that make the game harsh should be softened so we don't lose a possible new player who doesn't want to deal with the difficulty, and whether code changes should make the game easier because people don't have time to RP (20 minutes) through an obstacle in a...role playing game.

What some people seem to have difficulty seeing is that most of the older players opposed to all these changes aren't at all wanting to keep some sort of edge, they're wanting to maintain the foundations and integrity of how and what the game is supposed to be.

If I have a recipe for Mom's Luscious Lasagna that takes fourteen steps to make, and I change the noodles and the sauce and the filling, and the way it's cooked and the seasonings I finish with and I cut out six steps all together...I'll still end up with dinner, it just sure as hell isn't going to be Mom's Luscious Lasagna by the time I sit down to eat it.

I sometimes, like you, feel like there are a number of players who want some sort of trendy dinner -almost- like Mom's Luscious Lasagna, but they don't really want the lasagna.

[Malken]

I'm very pro-changes because I realize that this game is like 20+ years old and what made a game great in 1990 doesn't make it great in 2016.

By that I mean that back then, we had -very- few choices for entertainment purposes, so sticking to Armageddon was very easy and we weren't tempted by constant and amazing daily new games to take us away from it.

There's also the fact, like it's been stated recently, that we're not getting many "new" players and that most of our playerbase are aging gamers who have either stuck with Armageddon all these years and are now slowly running out of "fun" time to dedicate to the game or are veterans returning to the game only to find that they really don't have that much time/patience left for Armageddon.

The "core" of Armageddon can remain while changes around it to adapt to the realities of today's gamers and non-renewable playerbase is quite possible and even, in my not-so-humble opinion (I've won two trophies, after all), necessary for its survival in the next few years.

Mom's Luscious Lasagna is super tasty except there's fewer and fewer people left around the table to eat it.

Maybe we need to crumble some Doritos atop of it to give it a cool edge, yo! (tm)

[Miradus]

You're kind of a curmudgeon. That's fine.

KIND of a curmudgeon?

Hey, my friend. If you look up curmudgeon in the dictionary you will see my autographed photo.

[LauraMars]

Lizzie/Miradus OTP

I ship it

[bardlyone]

I'm very pro-changes because I realize that this game is like 20+ years old and what made a game great in 1990 doesn't make it great in 2016.

By that I mean that back then, we had -very- few choices for entertainment purposes, so sticking to Armageddon was very easy and we weren't tempted by constant and amazing daily new games to take us away from it.

There's also the fact, like it's been stated recently, that we're not getting many "new" players and that most of our playerbase are aging gamers who have either stuck with Armageddon all these years and are now slowly running out of "fun" time to dedicate to the game or are veterans returning to the game only to find that they really don't have that much time/patience left for Armageddon.

The "core" of Armageddon can remain while changes around it to adapt to the realities of today's gamers and non-renewable playerbase is quite possible and even, in my not-so-humble opinion (I've won two trophies, after all), necessary for its survival in the next few years.

Mom's Luscious Lasagna is super tasty except there's fewer and fewer people left around the table to eat it.

Maybe we need to crumble some Doritos atop of it to give it a cool edge, yo! (tm)

Basically all the stuff Malken said.

I've been playing arm for the better part of a decade. I've seen parts of the game world most people never will. I'm (probably) a big part of the reason (other than the Klestion debacle) why tribes are as restricted as they are when players create them. I know the game world and setting, and I love it. But it's the setting that keeps me coming back, not the code. If altering the code to make it easier for the cool kids (ie: those who have so full a life they don't have 8 hours a day to play) to play and be happy? Go for it. There's a difference in changing the IN GAME WORLD and the codebase. It feels like a lot of the opposition to changes is opposition to code changes, not IC world changes, and it DOES come from people who have learned the game world one way and have every human motivation not to want to learn it another. Which is... understandable... but kind of skews that lasagna analogy. You're not changing the recipe and skipping six steps. You're buying the goddamn lasagna noodles that cook in the oven so you don't have to spend all day preboiling them. That's not a change of recipe, it's a change of brand used for one of the ingredients.

[Patuk]

The people are talking! Pour boiling oil over them!

Snark aside, RAT was removed already, so the gdb is much quieter than it once was. Given that staff don't blindly go along with every idea a person ever comes up with, people talking about the things they'd like to see isn't a bad thing.

[Lizzie]

Yeah let's do lasagna comparisons.

So we switch out from home-made from scratch lasagna noodles to Kraft Frozen Pre-Cooked Lasagna Noodles.
Then instead of grain-fed grass-finished local ground chuck that's been properly aged, we go with the trendy (but nastier-tasting and chewier) ultra low-fat grain-fed grain-finished ground sirloin kobe beef.
Now - we'll just switch out the parmesano reggiano cheese for Stella, since it's less expensive and you can get it in the 7-11 down the street.
Of course - who needs locally-made ricotta cheese from Liuzzi's, when you can get - Stella.
Sauce? Hah. Ain't nobody got time for that. We'll use Ragu.

Yes, it'll be lasagna. Yes, it'll have the same quantity of the same basic ingredients: wheat-based noodles, cow-based meat, cheese, and red sauce.

It'll still taste like shit and you couldn't pay me to eat it.

[bardlyone]

Well, you know, you wouldn't be the first to hate the lasagna, it happens.

But what you're talking about would be tantamount to using coffeemud and importing area files so things still just looked the same. Which is to say: You're being extremely hyperbolic.

I'm going to bow out of the thread now, though. As you're never going to get me on board and I'm only going to wind up snapping if you keep trying to make that point at me, because that point is basically inaccurate. Maybe from your perspective it's accurate. It's not from mine. And if you don't like the lasagna... well... no one's making you eat it.

[WanderingOoze]

I like the game as it is mostly. A few changes here and there aren't the end of the world, but I'm opposed to this trend of
'Lets make Armageddon easy-mode"

I really don't have much else to add. But these Lasagna analogies are hilarious.  

[Miradus]

All I got from this thread is hungry.

[valeria]

I don't mind that people start discussions as much as that some people don't seem to realize how a discussion works. There are people that are going to disagree. I'm disagreeing with the OP right now.

I guess what bothers me most isn't that people want to make suggestions for what they view as improvement, it's the tone that people take when someone dares to disagree or offer constructive criticism. We all want this game that we love to be great, and to attract and keep players. I just wish more people would approach discussion from that direction.

The other thing that drives me mad is that the game isn't actually static. Just look at the change log and staff announcements for the past three months, both for IC changes and OOC changes to code and administration. You don't even have to go a year. The game has been pretty dynamic in my tenure here, and the fact that it changes is part of why I even play here over getting lost in Fallout 4 or something.

Anyway, that's why I disagree in part: I don't mind the amount of discussion, but I'd like to see the LEVEL brought upward.

[Malken]

It'll still taste like shit and you couldn't pay me to eat it.

But I feel like you would still eat it. You are the kind of customers that, when a company makes a big change, they aren't afraid to lose because they know you'll stick around no matter what (I forgot the business jargon for that kind of consumers) - but the company is aware that they have to make a choice between losing a few die-hard customers versus getting the chance of gaining many new ones - The odds are that the die-hard customers will stick around.

There are a few unique players that shouldn't count in the equation because they are too much at the edge of both spectrum (they will keep playing no matter what - baring a huge catastrophic change / those who will bitch and never return no matter what changes are implemented because of some past experience they can't get over)

And I'm saying this with peace and love, since die-hard loyalty is very unique in today's entertainment business.

[Nergal]

Warning - while you were typing 6 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.
*posts anyway*

I think discussions regarding game changes are pretty useful, and provide ideas to staff on what we can do next. We definitely don't implement 100% of ideas posted (wait, let me check... nope, typing 'necksnap' still returns "What?"), but we do use player feedback to add stuff to the game in a measured way. Just looking at the current news feed on the main page currently, 4/5 of those changes are based on GDB posts or request tool submissions. The release notes Nessalin puts out after reboots often cover player-suggested changes as well. There's a practical purpose to this forum: the staff team is small compared to the playerbase and getting ideas from 200+ people is way better than ideas from just a handful of staff.

That said, I think there's a good point to the other side of the coin too. The game is pretty solid as-is. It has survived the test of time, and has survived other RPIs rising and falling. Could it be better? Of course; anything could be better. It's important not to get complacent either, and recognize that we need to change with the times. I don't think the suggestion of change implies that the current game is bad - it's just that tweaks could make the game more enjoyable, or account for more things, or put a fresh coat of paint on an otherwise old way of doing things.

[Malken]

It's important not to get complacent either, and recognize that we need to change with the times. I don't think the suggestion of change implies that the current game is bad - it's just that tweaks could make the game more enjoyable, or account for more things, or put a fresh coat of paint on an otherwise old way of doing things.

Yep!

Mmmmm, doritos-coated Grandma's lasagna.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Lizzie]

What I'm seeing Nergal, is what happens when I click on "show unread posts since last visit."

I'm seeing:

Change this!
Change that!
Non-game discussion about some other game.
Something's going on today.
Change some thing!
Make this change!
Something's going on this week.
Non-game discussion about other games.
Add this!
Nerf that!
Make this easier!
Make that harder!


This is what I see several times every day when I click on "show unread posts since last visit."

I don't like that. I want to see more of:

This is happening today!
This is happening this week!
Player opinion on recent change #1
Player opinion on recent change #2
Nessalin's weekly report.
This just happened an hour ago OMG!
Staff said they're planning on changing this: player input.

Not saying I want to see this exclusively - I'm saying that when I click on "unread posts since last visit" and have to squint my eyes to see anything OTHER than stuff about other games and ideas for making changes, it discourages me. It makes me feel like people don't want to enjoy Arm. They want to enjoy something that isn't Arm, and rather than do that, they want to make Arm into what they want, rather than what it is.

[Chettaman]

I don't want to say that I disagree, because there are a lot of ideas getting thrown out lately. About this thing that we all love. We're not trying to change it to become something we'll all end up hating - even if the game world does end up sucking. We're not trying to avoid enjoying the things that we do have - even if we do take those things for granted.

We talk because we love this game. We want it to be great, and you're right Lizzie. Sometimes if not all the time we take for granted the awesomeness we have and complain about how things could be better, because, if you ask me, things could be better. I'm not saying they're not awesome. I enjoyed this game ten years ago when I didn't understand the mechanics behind everything. I enjoyed the idea that I had to roleplay and everyone else did too and that even though I kind of sucked at it, I could get better. But even while loving this experience there were plenty of times where I would say something like, "What? I can't see someone emoting when I'm watching that direction unless it's a command emote? I wish I could see an emote if I were watching a direction. I mean... that even makes sense."
I get what you're saying, people just want things to change as if they never liked the game, but I haven't noticed that. People just want to talk about these things that have been on their minds or have just popped into their minds and have them discussed at least. Because there are good ideas and there are bad ideas.

If we talk about them we can discover ways to make this world better!
But you're right. Our world is great now too. My favorite thing to do in game is be with other people pretending to be other people. Little code involved in talking and emoting.


(if or if not this is what you meant)
also I also support the idea of inter communications between people about in game and out of game stuff, but I'm not sure about how appropriate that would actually be. Actually. I am sure, and while I would still love to see it, I don't think we can openly chit chat about those things. Though it would be cool to see... I feel like people would devolve from roleplaying for the sake of "this is how it is" to roleplaying for just those sorts of moments.
... which it already kind of has in a way for some players. But we won't get into that conversation.
But I mean... it's fun to talk about all the cool stuff you do, ya know? I wanna say it's even more fun than actually having done whatever, because you get to share it with others. For real.

[Reiloth]

If the game doesn't change, it will die. How change is suggested should be measured and not entitled. Reaction to not having suggestions implemented should be calm. If people don't discuss change, or become afraid of it, ArmageddonMUD will be a ghost town sooner than you think.