[Jazuela]

Here's my rebuttal - paragraph by paragraph:

Originally Posted by Armageddon prides its self to be a RP intensive mud, where RP is strictly inforced and PK without RP is forbidden. This is utter non-sense. Though there is a higher level of RP here than at other muds, a carefully crafted character can easily be killed by by someone who choses to neglect the rules of RP. There are plenty of instences of players walking into a room and killing a character without a single word or emote. If you want to see specific examples then just go to their discussion board.

Armageddon -is- a RPI, and has proven itself somewhat of an industry standard in that vein. Anything without taking RP into consideration is against the rule, there's no nonsense about it.

Unfortunately there are twinks who show up in EVERY game, and Armageddon is not immune to occasional morons. As for players walking into a room and killing someone without an emote, you can refer to their discussion board to see that OFTEN (not always - see twink note above), there is careful planning on the part of the assassin before-hand, and that assassin might have been standing in the next room, hiding, using the "think" command to strategize - none of which the victim can ever see. That doesn't mean the assassin isn't roleplaying. It simply means the victim can't see what has gone into the assassination other than the initial attack.

Originally Posted by The staff is rude and at times are no where to be found. To illustrate: five weeks ago I sent an email to the mud asking for help with my game account. Since the website said that all emails are usually answered within 48 hours, I sent the staff member in charge of responding to emails a message via the game's discussion board inquiring of the status of my email. Here is a copy of that message: Hello. I sent an email to mud@armageddon.org a few days ago asking for a copy of my account notes. I followed all the instructions in the contacting the staff section of the help files, but I haven't received any response from the mud. Thank you for all your help And here is their response: Yes, I'm having trouble answering account mail because everyone is sending me stupid PMs ont he GDB.

Well that's kinda a no-brainer. If you've ever read the GDB (and you seem to be making it infinitely clear that you do) you would realize that the staff HATES getting PMs. The more PMs they get, the less time they have to dedicate themselves to e-mail, which is how they expect to be contacted when there is a need.

As for account notes - those are -one- of the exception, which falls under the category "usually" in the "are usually answered within 48 hours." First, they have to find your account. Then they have to check it for things that are inappropriate to send you (such as the account name of the guy you killed last tuesday - that might show up in your account notes too). Then if there is any question on any of the notes, they have to confer with the IMM who wrote it - which could take some time, if that IMM happens to be on vacation that week, or if it's a retired IMM..etc. etc. etc.

I also -highly- doubt that any of the staff members would respond with the exact verbiage you chose to quote - in particular the blaring typo "ont he GDB." In essence, I just plain don't believe you on that point and figure you probably exaggerated to extract a measure of pity from your readers.

Originally Posted by In addition, the mechanics of the mud are also hopelessly flawed. The game lags like you would not believe; a real mystery considering there are usually only 20-30 players online. Characters often die from lag or crashes during combat. These characters are not reimbersed due to "mud policy," which forces you to wait 24 hours to have another character approved for play. The shop system of the game will only accept 5 of one item for one real life week; meaning if you arn't one of the players who are able to log on before anyone else and flood the shops with goods after a reboot, then you arn't going to sell a thing for the next week. The NPCs of the mud are buggy and players have asked that NPC guards in the city be tuned for what must be atleast 4 years now, yet no tune is ever implemented. This problem is also cited on the games GDB. By the way, a game reboot takes an entire day. Yup, every saturday from 9am till 7 pm the game is down and unplayable. Know any other muds where it takes that long to change/fix/add something? Achaea has 500 players regularly and they don't even reboot like that.

The mechanics of the MUD are a VAST improvement from the DIKU upon which it is based. Most of what you think is lag, is an intentional movement delay. The official documents explain that..but you knew that, since you've read the official documents - right?

There was a very marked lag that occurred for the better part of the last two weeks, but apparently it was some kind of glitch and has subsequently been fixed. Prior to that, there was no lag at all - and since then, the lag is negligible when it does occur, which is rare.

20-30 players online usually around lunchtime, EST. At night, EST, it's usually around 60, give or take half a dozen. It's irrelevent though, because the supposed "lag" has nothing to do with how many people are playing it. Most is the coded intentional movement delay, and the rest was the glitch mentioned previously, which has been fixed.

Characters -can't- be reimbursed. Once your character dies, the character file is deleted. It no longer exists in the database. There is no way to restore that which no longer exists. Sorry - them's the breaks.

The shop system is a mess - and many people, rather than bitch about it, have offered suggestions. It looks like the staff is actually doing something about it, which means that <gasp> they take player suggestions seriously.

Not all NPCs are buggy, and in fact the soldiers aren't "buggy" at all. It's a flaw in the code - not a bug. And it is being addressed, and is yet again another of those things that is being addressed as a result of player input.

Game shuts down for a day so that the staff can implement new things, fix bugs, discuss issues, etc. etc. etc. without any distraction from players. God forbid you are FORCED to get off your arse and take a walk or read a book or <gawk> Talk to someone up close and personal...gimme a freaking break.

Originally Posted by In addition, there is aboslutely nothing to do in this mud. There are no quests, no monsters you can't solo kill until your character is atleast a few real life days old, no special weapon of blasting. Nothing. All you can do is sit around all day waiting for someone you know to log in so that you can train your fighting skills with them.

You mean - there is nothing HANDED TO YOU to do. Heavens forfend you should make up your own quests.. and I beg to differ regarding monsters you can solo kill. They exist. I've killed a few. Within my first day of playing a new character. Not that killing monsters is such a big deal - why would you want to spend all day killing mobs when there is so much MORE to do? Most of my characters weren't even combat-oriented and never killed a single mob, and I -rarely- was bored. Boredom occurs in all things, just like in real life. Oh well..sucks to be you I guess, if you can't handle an hour of sitting idle or - ooooohhhh...logging off and taking that walk, or reading that book, or talking to a real live person.

Originally Posted by The game is not newbie friendly; most questions on the gdb are answered with "find out for yourself in game." Once again, go to their message board and count how many times that phrase shows up.

Again - this has more to do with people not wanting to HAND YOU THINGS. Most of the information people ask about are in the documentation on the website. Most of the things that are -not- on the documentation, are missing for a reason: certain things are designed to be discovered IN the game, with your character. Kinda like, oh, maybe..those quests you claim don't exist?

Originally Posted by With the currupt staff, messy coding, weekly day long reboots, and lack of coded things to do, armageddon is very possibly one of the worst put together muds I've ever played

Ah - so because the staff doesn't want to be your personal babysitter, they're corrupt. And because they want to give us the best they can possible deliver, without interruption, for just over 12 hours per week, this is a bad thing. And because the game is structured such that you don't HAVE to rely on the code to come up with something to do, it's a badly put together mud.

Groovy. And good riddance to ya. Hope you find what you're looking for somewhere else.

[T7DV]

One might wish to find a nice little H&S where you can twink out, buddy up to the Imms, and so forth...

...also, one might note that a review is just that - a review - and some players are just not meant to play every mud. You can't play RPI, and that much is apparent just from the level of dislike that you annoint Armageddon and its community with.

Therefore, as I stated before, go find a nice little, limited-RP, quest-plentiful H&S to populate, and don't try your hand at any more RPIs, because I know of no RPI where the things you mention (other than the code's simplicity, which additionally, makes the game world itself much easier to get into since you are not hunting down this command and that) do not occur.

RIP.

[Kallekins]

First of all, I sense some hostility here, and I don't want to make people any more upset or defensive than they are. This isn't directly against Armageddon. However, I agree with the reviewer on the point of there being nothing to do. I've experienced the same thing when trying out RPIs. If there is nobody around to roleplay with...there's nothing to do. You can't even explore very much, because newbies are so weak and death is permanent.
I like quests. I don't see how an NPC asking you, "Hello, could you do a favor for me?" means things are being handed to you. If the quest is still a difficult puzzle you have to work out, it is still challenging. A game shouldn't be challenging just to find something to do. Fun isn't a reward for only skilled players. It is a game--it should be fun for everyone at every level.
Furthermore, why is it that having quests and having an interactive world is more common on hack and slash than RPI. When I can talk to NPCs and have them answer me semi-intelligently; when I can get a shovel and dig a hole in the ground, and have there be a hole now in that room, and maybe then bury something in the hole, and then be tired from all that digging; when the goblins refuse to trade with me anymore because yesterday I killed a few of them...that makes me feel like the mud is more than just a backdrop set. It is a world that my character is an integral part of, and that makes me roleplay better.
Emoting at unresponsive NPCs and imagining that they've responded isn't interaction...so how can it really be roleplay? And yet it tends to be that H&S have code to make the world interact with the players, and the RPIs are just background to the players' emoting.

[Jazuela]

As I told the "Sheep" guy - there's plenty to do. There are quests - though most of them are created and run by other players, and posted on the gossip board in the taverns. An example (I'm making it up because real stuff is IC and we're not supposed to discuss ongoing plotlines):

"Several Borsail Wyvern guards cluster together in a corner, murmuring with excited gleams in their eyes about the upcoming games. One of them snorts, claiming that he will win, while another smirks at him and reminds him of the elf who whipped his butt in a simple game of hardscrabble just last week. The first guard grumbles and shakes his head, commenting on how the templars shouldn't allow skinnies to enter the games at all.

A templar walks in, surrounded by soldiers, and the room becomes eerily silent, the Wyverns turning as a single unit to slip out the back door."

And now - you, the newbie know that there is some kind of game coming up, that it's being sponsored by a templar, and that basically everyone is invited to participate (since elves are generally not invited to anything in town). The quest begins by the newbie actually seeking out a templar, or a templar's aide, or a Borsail, or anyone else who might have heard the same rumor, and try and find out where, when, and what is involved.

Regarding NPCs - some of them ARE smart. Some of them you CAN talk to, and will give semi-intelligent (though canned) answers. This is well documented on the website.

The reason the game doesn't have canned quests is because it doesn't need them. The players create their own. There is no need for a Senior Noble NPC In Charge Of Quests, because there are PC nobles who are more than happy to help you, offer you a job, hire you as a secret spy, send you on some silly mindless task in exchange for an ungodly amount of sids.

There are PCs who are entrusted with the responsibility of hiring other PCs - which encourages new players to get involved the first day they show up in the game.

Granted - there are times of the day when it's sparsely populated - but anyone who reads the docs has a good idea of where to find the most people during "usual" prime time, and this is also where most people will be found hanging out on off-times as well. If the game had a bunch of autoquests to cater to the minority of people who are unfortunate enough to log on at 4 in the morning Eastern time, USA, because they live in Europe, then the game will shift to one that caters to people who like autoquests. It's inevitable, and Armageddon is NOT that kind of game. It's a game that becomes whatever you make of it.

And yes - I've had my fair share of boring hours of doing nothing but sitting idle in the tavern, or walking back and forth through the market, wishing SOMETHING interesting would happen. But I have hours like that in real life too, and I'm not gonna quit life just because of a few dull hours. Plus - Arm is free. The only investment on your part is time - and if you have it to spare, you're not losing anything by sitting there doing nothing for an hour.

There's nothing preventing you from getting up from the bar and going for a walk in town. There's nothing stopping you from creating a stir. Nothing is stopping a player from thinking - hmm.. this is an interesting looking NPC, this beggar. But using "talk" doesn't result in anything - and using the "wish" command to ask an IMM to animate the guy so maybe he can tell you a story about when he once had hot tregil sex with Lady Bigboob Tor.

There's nothing preventing you from trying something that you don't have on your skills list. Like- deciding that this building looks low enough - I wonder if I put my hand up here..and push my foot up over there..maybe I can just climb u...oh ####..guess not.

There's nothing preventing you from your character being disgusted with a VIRTUAL half-breed that isn't even coded into the game, and having a heated arguement with him - possibly drawing some attention to you and turning it into a big all out street brawl.

The only thing that prevents you from doing any of this stuff is your own imagination. And so maybe your character will do something dumb and die. So what? He's gonna die eventually anyway, it's a permanent death game. So why not make the best of it and have fun with the death that you KNOW is gonna come?

Nobles don't ask favors of commoners. They order commoners to do their bidding. If you want your commoner character to do something for a noble, then walk up to a noble's aide or guard and ask if you can do something for his boss. Why is it that everyone has to cater to the newbies? Why can't the newbies get out there and start asking for stuff themselves, instead of waiting for things to come to them?

In Armageddon, the meek starve to death. That can be an adventure of its own, though not one I recommend. If you want your character involved in something, MAKE him involved in something. If you're not willing to do this, then you have no right to complain when you have nothing to do.

[Threshold]

...

And people wonder why so many popular muds have reviews turned off?

[Almondine War]

I still prefer games to allow reviews. If they don't bother, neither do I. Why?

Reviews can be helpful and they can be sladerous. In both, it's often quite easy for a reader to tell if they are just advertising and sucking up or bashing with hate. And in both, some very important points can often be brought up to someone's attention which may not be noticeable until after a long time of game-play.

[welcor]

Never having played armageddon (and never wanting to, considering I'm a h&s kinda guy), I just noticed a small misunderstanding in the original post:

Originally Posted by Not all NPCs are buggy, and in fact the soldiers aren't "buggy" at all. It's a flaw in the code - not a bug. And it is being addressed, and is yet again another of those things that is being addressed as a result of player input

A "flaw in the code" is a bug. Whether or not it is occurring for other mobs is irrelevant.

Good luck fixing the bug.

[Traithe]

No - actually.

I believe what they are referring to as a "flaw" here is a design issue - the code does in fact do what it was written to do; the problem is that the end result is a common pet-peeve, i.e. overly powered enforcer NPCs.

A "bug" is generally when the code malfunctions in some way, either due to an error in programming or a misstep in logic.

[Jazuela]

Thanks Traithe, that's what I meant. I actually tried to word it correctly but came upon a void in the elemental plane of "brainz."

It's a design issue, not a bug. The NPCs do exactly what they were programmed to do. Unfortunately, they were programmed to do something that is causing a few people to gripe. It's a valid gripe, and the staff is trying to work out what, exactly, they can do about it that won't mess it up even worse.

If you put in an automatic delay, then a criminal in the same room as the soldier will get off scott-free every single time. That kinda obliterates the whole purpose of a crim-code. If you remove the automatic recognition of criminals, even when the criminal has his hood up or has his face otherwise covered, then you open a HUGE can of ridiculously easily abuseable worms. One recent suggestion was to add a code check on the part of the NPC, to see if the criminal is wielding a weapon. If he is, then all bets are off, criminal gets juiced, end of story. If he isn't, then as long as he doesn't struggle (there's a toggle called "nosave" for that, which every player can use for his character), he'll just get subdued and dragged off to jail.

The problem with that, is that some crimes really -should- be instant death. Like magickers in the north. They are killed -on sight- with no questions asked. Or if a criminal walks up to a soldier and kicks him in the balls - you really think an NPC would say "dood - you stop that right now!" or is he gonna haul off and waste that infidel's sorry hide?

So then you have to recode the system to break the crimes down into various severities. And not a single one of them accounts for emoted crimes, such as..emote sticks his hand in %templar pocket, and upon finding nothing to retrieve, gives !templar a grope.

That's punishable by death too. Them's some holy junk you're grabbin there boyo.

And so - until something -really awesome- is worked out, the imperfect system stays, and if you don't wanna die, the solution is simple: don't get caught.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Here's my rebuttal - paragraph by paragraph

The reviewer says that people often kill without reason - you answer that there are twinks in every game.

He says he sent an email five weeks ago asking for help, then followed up with a PM asking on the status of his email - you respond that the staff hate PMs, and point out that the wording only states that they usually answer within 48 hours.

He points out that the mechanics of the mud are flawed - you respond by saying that it's better than the DIKU upon which it is based and that "Not all NPCs are buggy".

And so on...

No offense intended, as generally I find that the negative reviews contain little of worth, but in this case you seem to be defending and excusing the faults he claimed, not rebutting them. And to be perfectly honest, I find such a defence more damning than the original review (which I would most likely have simply dismissed or ignored).

[Jazuela]

KaVir, people don't OFTEN PK for no reason. I was very clear, and it looks like you intentionally misread it. The most COMMON mistake is when people have damned good, valid, and well-prepared reasons to PK others, and the victim simply doesn't get a chance to see it. It is totally roleplayed out. A sneaky backstabbing assassin isn't going to come out of hiding and emote standing there waiting for his victim's response. He's gonna do all the preparation in advance, including waiting for passing soldiers to go away, and then backstab his victim and RUN before he gets caught.

Often assassinations are done through hiring the assassin, and that assassin is hired because he is known to be someone who does not get caught. This takes careful planning, and requires that the victim never finds out who or what is going on until the moment of his death. And even then - there's always the chance that he could send a quick psionic message to his buddy warning him of the assassin.

So no - PKs are certainly NOT done often for no reason. In fact this is extremely rare, it is against the rules, and players who indulge in this behavior are punished, up to, and including, sitebans.

I told the guy - that the staff has said countless times not to use PM to discuss game problems with them. So this guy went and did it anyway "a few days" after receiving no response, according to his post. Not 5 weeks. He has now earned himself the title "pest" because he didn't follow the procedure and decided that he wasn't subject to the rules like everyone else. If he had waited a week - which the staff ALSO has asked people to do countless times - and e-mailed them again to remind them that he's waiting for his account notes, he probably would've gotten them with a polite note apologizing for the delay.

The mechanics of the code are flawed. I agreed with him on that, which you would see I was also clear on if you had thoroughly read that paragraph. I ALSO stated that it wasn't a bug, it was a design issue (though I worded it as "flaw" - semantics, whatever) as a matter of correcting him because he was - well - incorrect. I ALSO explained why it wasn't as simple a matter as fixing a line of code. But I did agree with him that this is an issue, and disagreed with him in that the staff DOES care about it and IS trying to figure out what to do about it.

and so on.

[Threshold]

4-->

Originally Posted by (Almondine War @ Aug. 14 2004,01[img http://www.topmudsites.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif[/img]4)]I still prefer games to allow reviews. If they don't bother, neither do I. Why?

Why don't they bother letting every bitter, immature, 12 year old nimrod with internet access have an easy, free method to libel them?

Do you actually have to ask this?

Originally Posted by Reviews can be helpful and they can be sladerous. In both, it's often quite easy for a reader to tell if they are just advertising and sucking up or bashing with hate. And in both, some very important points can often be brought up to someone's attention which may not be noticeable until after a long time of game-play.

Player reviews are almost never helpful and are generally either libelous or obsequious. Both types are worthless.

Professional reviews are somewhat useful- especially if the reviewer has been at it a while and you can read many of their reviews so you can figure out what their preferences are.

Player reviews are absolute garbage. The fact that review rebuttals are such a common forum discussion is further evidence of this. If you hang around TMS a while you'll see how frequently these player reviews are used as either as a shameless act of self-promotion or a disgusting act of self-serving defamation.

The single best way to improve the entire TMS site and especially the forums would be to remove player reviews entirely from ALL muds.

[Yui Unifex]

Originally Posted by ("Threshold" @ foo) Player reviews are almost never helpful... [snip] Player reviews are absolute garbage... [snip] The single best way to improve the entire TMS site and especially the forums would be to remove player reviews entirely from ALL muds.

How can you prove this is true for everyone? I disagree, and think that the player reviews are useful as supplemental information. The worthless reviews are easy to pick out. But even those have some utility if one doesn't let the biased, opinionated statements -- much like your own judgement here -- discolor the factual content.

[Valg]

Player reviews are absolute garbage. The fact that review rebuttals are such a common forum discussion is further evidence of this. If you hang around TMS a while you'll see how frequently these player reviews are used as either as a shameless act of self-promotion or a disgusting act of self-serving defamation.

The single best way to improve the entire TMS site and especially the forums would be to remove player reviews entirely from ALL muds.

I like having reviews available for Carrion Fields. Why should that option be removed from me? Because you don't like them?

If you don't like reviews, turn them off for your game, don't read them, and don't visit threads where people discuss them.

[StygianKING]

Not everyone who doesn't like your MUD is a 'twink'. I think its in serious bad taste to respond to a 'bad' review. People have a right to their opinion, and you, after all, are accepting reviews for your game. I'm sure you would like every review for your game to be good, but thats not realistic at all. Perhaps if you had responded to your user in the game, they wouldn't have felt a need to write a bad review for you. I really don't know, and don't care. But the 'followup' replies to the bad reviews here got old a long time ago. Not everyone will like your game - and if they wish to write a review stating so, then thats their right. Im sure intelligent users scanning the reviews can tell the difference between a vindictive flame-review over a fair review, anyway. Most of these 'responses' to reviews would have us believe that so-and-so's game cant possibly be bad, and of course the Imms are angels. Most of us long timers know that is rarely ever really the whole truth.

-SK
The Hyborian Lands MUD: Dark Shadows in Zamora
hyborian-lands.net 6666

P.S. A games biggest target for players are the teen age group. Ever notice most of these issues arise from R.P. drama? I've always been a firm believer that when you put 14yr olds in serious R.P. situations, there are inevitably going to be serious problems in the decision-making processes. Never fails as a matter of fact. Anyway, I'm not going to open that can of worms further.

[Jazuela]

StygianKING...you didn't address your post to anyone in particular, and several people have posted here. I'll take a gander and pretend like it was directed to me, since I'm the one who started the thread.

First of all, it isn't my game. I'm not an IMP, I'm not a staff member, I'm not even a "Helper". I'm just a regular o