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Old 11-05-2017, 09:57 AM   #1
Bronn
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Armageddon: A well-coded game with a toxic and stagnant community and setting

Armageddon is an RPI that has, thus far, withstood the test of time. Its primary appeal to the players is roleplay backed by code, which can lead to fame or permadeath. It has earned a lot of hostility over the years, often from disgruntled players who get frustrated with the staff. As a former player and staff member who's been away for a while and has recently checked out the current state of the game, I'm writing to offer a different perspective, and hopefully, a fair one.

Game Mechanics (3/5):

The game's mechanics are fairly simplistic, but that's not a knock on them. The six guilds and numerous subguilds provide an ample amount of opportunity to create a character with a unique skill set, and a guild revamp is underway. Characters have four attributes - strength, agility, wisdom, and endurance. High values in these scores are handy, but tend to matter less as your character becomes more skilled. Skills advance through failure, as failure grants a chance - often 100%, provided enough time has passed since the last failure - to gain a point in your skill.

Eventually, this system does become rather stale, and it's harder to find unique skillsets that are actually useful in-game. 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. Some crafting subguilds are easier to game than others, because players refuse to report wonky item costs and abuse them by selling trinkets that should be worthless for hundreds of coins. 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, coming up with a weak excuse for their character to want to mess up at something they're trying to do. Consider this: when is the last time you got out of bed hoping to completely screw something up, possibly injuring yourself in the process?

Feature Set (5/5):

Armageddon has talented programmers who consistently add and update game features. The game’s code is written in C, and scripting is in JavaScript. Practically any practical activity you can possibly do in Armageddon's world is coded, and they often take ideas and input from players when determining what to work on next.

Game World (2/5):

At the risk of seemingly looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, I will carefully explain a clear phenomenon with any game world. On Day 1 of starting a new game, the game's setting seems vast and exciting. Every place to explore is new. Every creature or character you can run into is a new experience. But play through the game, and start again, and that setting loses some of its luster. You already know it.

It stands to reason, then, that to keep a setting interesting, new things must get added to it. Unfortunately, once you hit Armageddon's borders, that's all there really is to them. Staff have ideas on expanding the world, but they tend to fall through or get shelved. I sincerely hope I am wrong about this statement, but I don't see Armageddon's world growing any time soon. And that is because the trend suggests shrinkage, not growth.

To some extent, it's shrinking because it's practical to shrink. With a smaller playerbase, fewer players will actually interact with one another if they are spread out across longer distances.

Armageddon had two major, opposing playing areas: Allanak and Tuluk. At some point a couple of years ago, Tuluk was closed. Although the high-level staff made this decision with good intentions, they ignored reports from lower-level staff as well as clear metrics from the players showing that Tuluk was gaining additional interest and more time investment from players. Suddenly, Tuluk, which has more documentation than Allanak and was more fleshed out then Allanak, was set to close, with a final storyline to ensure that it would be plunged into chaos and swept under the rug. 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.

Since then, the stagnancy of Allanak has been put on full display. While the staff do focus on the players there, and give them opportunities to participate in storylines, the setting as a whole does not change significantly enough to hold a player's interest for long. Staff interest has turned outward, to make minor playing locations like Luir's Outpost and Red Storm Village more interesting. But with Allanak as the recommended starting location for new players, and the main hub of activity, it sets a poor example for the setting as a whole.

(continued in next post)
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