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Old 11-11-2017, 09:26 AM   #3
shevegen
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 63
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Re: Armageddon: A well-coded game with a toxic and stagnant community and setting

> A cultural stigma where some players throw out all roleplay to hunt
> down petty thieves that stole their worthless item make the pickpocket
> and burglar guilds undesirable for their actual stealing ability.

If you invest your time into pestering and harassing other playercharacters,
disguised as a "pickpocket", then why shouldn't other players invest
their time into eliminating such playercharacters? Where is the fun for
the victim?

I played PPs too but I played social PPs in the sense of not aggravating
others (that is, to not steal from other playercharacters), unless there
would be a "need" for it (such as to penalize and punish those who are
on a rampage spree against pickpockets). That model worked for me very
well and it worked for others too. There is a basic saying - quid pro
quo. Don't harass others if they have not harassed you.

> The skill-growth-by-failure system is one of the most abused systems
> I have seen in any game, with some players eschewing roleplay for
> an opportunity to fail at something,

You wrote that it is a RPI setting but the game mechanics such as the
milking-by-failure system is a powergaming related mechanics. Better
skills, less chance for failure, right?

This is in some way similar to the GEAS mechanics too, although the
skill system is slightly more complicated than linear "failure leads
to improves". In GEAS, similar problems exist though, where some
players focus on powergaming and min-maxing rather than roleplay.

So this is not dissimilar to Armageddon or, assumingly, any other
MUD that can not decide whether it wants to be a RPI game or another
game.

> when is the last time you got out of bed hoping to completely
> screw something up, possibly injuring yourself in the process?

Again, this is a failure by the design of the SYSTEM itself that
leads up to such awkward playing styles. You have a similar set
of problems in GEAS, e. g. people doing tangible in-game action
just to milk for more skills. In the middle of a conversion,
people look at everything (appraise skills), look at nearby
"room" areas (training scout), doing practice moves (iron will),
reading books (study language/font skills) and so on and so forth.

Making a system that puts RPI at the center is difficult. Most
people who are good at designing game mechanics, are AWFUL when
it comes to RPI and "roleplay-enforced settings".

The reverse applies too. Some MUSH games have had wonderful RPI
setting but had no idea whatsoever about game mechanics.

Unifying both is difficult. I also think that those who are
more interested in roleplay in the first place, will have less
interest in the game mechanics, IF they are game designers too.

> Armageddon has talented programmers who consistently add and
> update game features.

That in itself never means that a game is getting better.

You can have regressions and mass retirement of players after
lots of code changes happen.

Retaining a player base when a code base gets worse, is very,
very difficult.

> The game's code is written in C, and scripting is in JavaScript.

Awful. And, awful.

Not that LPC is any better, mind you. It was created by a C/C++
programmer to just avoid having to deal with memory issues and
similar (to handle the objects and mudlib behaviour), but it is
not a good "world builder language".

Ideally any good language should be a simple but powerful DSL
that does not get into the way of the one adding content.

> It stands to reason, then, that to keep a setting interesting,
> new things must get added to it.

You probably haven't had a lot of experience with MUSHes or
player-driven game content. Good roleplayers can have their
own dynamics - the life histories of their characters can
lead to an interesting game where you don't necessarily have
to add "new things" all the time. And, again, very often these
"new things" make a game worse - at the least that was my
experience in the last 25 years (though admittedly, by now,
I have not even played MUDs more than 50% during that time;
people who hold the monopoly over the game code always knock
me out of games, simply by making a game worse).

> And that is because the trend suggests shrinkage, not growth.

You have the same problem for other MUDs, and even many years
ago. The whole world literally changed all around - it is
difficult for any text-based game to "stand the test of time".

> With a smaller playerbase, fewer players will actually
> interact with one another if they are spread out across
> longer distances.

That has also always been the case.

I can give you two examples, Xyllomer and GEAS.

On Xyllomer, PO Ash made area-related changes in the main
city. As a consequence, accessing and leaving the main
inn become harder and more annoying. Net effect? The old
inn no longer served as an interaction hotspots. Playerbase
also went downhill, although this was not solely related
alone to nerfing the area; other stupid changes also were
made, and as always, without discussing these changes with
the players prior to making the change.

On GEAS, PO Turian added an area, Karrsomething, which
further diluted the player base, right between the two
last major interaction areas of the game (Arborea and
Elvandar). Admin also killed off the old crossing area
years ago, and they do not even understand why this made
the game worse. Two non-admin wizards also stole the old
'who' functionality and replaced it with a ****tier
interface, further decimating the playerbase.

The thing is that in most of these games, someone who has
a wizard account wants to make changes, ends up doing these
change, ruins the game for others, then retires from the
game as well. It's an awful decay-cycle.

Jonas (PO Glasp) on the latter game brought the analogy of
a tavern-style based MUSH setting, with only few rooms,
being "brilliant because there were no distractions" in
regards to roleplay/RPI. Something similar could happen in
LPC-driven MUDs as well (and other MUDs), but it always
requires the people in charge of a game to KNOW what they
are doing, WHY they are doing it and HOW they are doing it.

Since in particular admin tends to no longer play their own
game after a while, they tend to lose touch and focus with
a game.

I do not know whether this is the case on Armageddon. I do
not know Armageddon so I can not judge. But I can relate
with some comments to a few other MUDs.

> And while I had fun observing this storyline, it was
> bittersweet. The community has a loud and obnoxious
> subset of Allanak fans who gloated over Tuluk's
> closure, but what they failed to understand is that
> it removed outside conflict for their precious city.

That is often the case. People don't understand the long term
situation of any game. In all the situations I know of,
though, fewer players means a smaller game. So the above
description actually sounds like mass-retiring players
away from the game. Pretty stupid, but Armageddon is not
alone in doing stupid decisions either.

> Since then, the stagnancy of Allanak has been put on
> full display.

Well, that only shows that it was a stupid decision. Recovering
from stupid decisions is VERY, very difficult. You need to have
a lot of momentum going to overcome any inertia that can arise
out of nowhere (or may already be in the game, just disguised
by the fact that you may assume that lots of players are
playing anyway).

> - Roleplay: As far as RPIs go, Armageddon is one of the
> giants. If, over the course of months of time investment,
> you establish a compelling and driven character, your
> investment will pay you back.

I can not comment on your promo since I do not know Armageddon.

However had, roleplay "investment" can only be "paid back" if
there are other players. It makes no sense to roleplay solo.

> The MUD community as a whole is fraught with dramatic people,
> haughty people, and, yes, even unstable people.

That may be your observation alone, I have no idea. In general
I found the universal truth to be:

- Either you have players. Then you have people who may complain,
be it a valid complaint or an invalid one.

- Or you don't have players. Then nobody will complain anyway
really, since there is nobody there to complain about anything.

> They expect, and often enjoy, rights, second chances, and
> storylines that the average Amos does not get.

This, to a lesser extent, can be found on other games too.

Usually the big demigods run the show and the others are their
perpetual cannon fodder. I consider this to be an awful
setup or any RPI driven game, but I am not an admin on anywhere.

I actually had some ideas for a better MUSH/MUD style setup
but ... time is the biggest problem overall for me these days.
I am also not entirely sure what features I'd want to have and
offer initially either. Coming up with REALLY great game mechanics
is also not so trivial. I'd rather focus on roleplay and storylines
first, but game mechanics must not be boring, as otherwise many
people also won't want to play (even if the focus is on roleplay
first).

> This is not an equal opportunity game

Are you quoting PO Abharsair from GEAS there?

I found this quote, or the statement in general, to be AWFUL. It
taps right into your elitism-comment. Some players get the goodies,
others are expendable cannon fodder. I generalize here too, by the
way, since it also depends a lot on the individual player at hand.

Some players can easily adjust to literally everything, others
struggle. I, for example, fail to adjust to the random preferences
of whoever holds the monopoly over any game code. It's just too
annoying to have to adjust to any game state that progressively
gets worse.
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