Armageddon Direction Trends

[frankjacoby]

IMO, staff controlling the direction of the game is the reason why we are losing people, from what I have seen and from what I am continuing to see over the last decade and now into the future.  YOU want to see something happen so you put people in under your control to see it happen. YOU decide something needs to change so you put people and push them towards YOUR goal. Perhaps the game is better served where the playerbase has reign to do what they want and reach out to report their goals and wishes. From personal experience, I have seen many things (Not being specific for secrecy reasons and all, another thing that needs to end, I will elaborate later) that were removed because you didn't like it, ie a certain spot in the game that people would congregate around and have experiences. I have seen stifling independents trying to do things but because they are not a part of the in-crowd, it doesn't happen.  I have seen RP degrade because people need to get their characters to a point where they can survive before they can concentrate on proper RP. Certain people have certain knowledge that allows them to min/max or get a jump ahead of other people and they use it prolifically to ensure their characters, even newly made, are better placed.  If 'secrets' such as spell lists, advancement (a lot has been done lately to improve this) was made available, people could tailor their RP to better conform to expected standards.

Perhaps allowing people a chance to prove they can fill roles instead of the same old people getting the roles over and over, doing a horrible job and moving on to another, or succeeding, it can go either way.
Tear down the Karma system to trust people more to play roles they would like to play and if they screw it up, perhaps dock them Karma rather than having people stuck to the outskirts with no chance of playing something interesting. I think the Karma system is horribly broken, My Karma got to the point where I could play some magickal roles then the system  changed to where I am now back on the outskirts, thinking of quitting because I can't somehow advance because I am not in the circle so to speak. I have applied for countless roles and gotten turned down each time only to see the same exact person who was a Byn Sergeant a week later is now an Oashi noble with the same RP. I say all of this not to downplay the efforts that have been put in by people who legitimately care about the game and want to see it improve, but to also shout down those who abuse and care little about it and do things on a whim because of their own selfish desires.

There are quite a few things more I could point out but I am sure a few things will happen on this post.

1. Gets locked because of potential flame
2. Gets shouted down because of potential conflict.

I fully accept either option but I feel strongly that a focus on restructuring Karma to place people more in the middle and make things more exciting for them should be done, this way they are still interested. Higher ranked people can play crappy roles sometimes but they still get opportunities over and over while there are people who want to advance this rich game that get relegated to the outside.

Food for thought.