We all share a common interest here

[Dartes]

I think the one clear option that would solve all problems, is that everyone should just join the Dragonsworn and hang out with me! The vast majority of my clanmates have turned out to be really chill, and I'm no statistician, but that can't be a coincidence.

In the spirit of civility, I personally offer my help to relocate any displaced Defenders that may be inconvenienced when a who list of 20 Dragonsworn eventually takes the Stone of Tear.

~Dartes

[Meshi]

I don't really see anything but the same exact people, who have major underlying issues that's made them difficult to like for years

How do you advance in this game? Through scalp rewards. Does scalp rewarding encourage co-operation? No. Are there people who abuse the system? Yes.

No wonder there's issues. Let's not promote bullshit "We all share a common interest"...once someone dies everyone is thinking "where's the loot" "I hope someone hasn't stolen (xxx rare item)" "I wonder how the loot will be split and will I get a fair share" "dung I don't want to wait until this time next year to get master I really want that scalp"

[daal]

I don't really see anything but the same exact people, who have major underlying issues that's made them difficult to like for years

How do you advance in this game? Through scalp rewards. Does scalp rewarding encourage co-operation? No. Are there people who abuse the system? Yes.

No wonder there's issues. Let's not promote bullshit "We all share a common interest"...once someone dies everyone is thinking "where's the loot" "I hope someone hasn't stolen (xxx rare item)" "I wonder how the loot will be split and will I get a fair share" "dung I don't want to wait until this time next year to get master I really want that scalp"

I'm sorry your outlook is defined through the narrow lense of personal advancement. Which, we all have that as one of our many goals for certain. However our joint interest is the continuance of this community (and if we are lucky it's eventual regrowth). For if you'd take a step back from the your microscope that you have focused on your own personal goals you would see that without people to interact with, both positive (grouping for xp, smobs, other adventure) or negative (killing for equipment or qp), you too would run out of methods to advance.

As such, regardless of your own personal goals you are also beholden to you fellow player and the downright hostility towards each other (including trying to troll Rig off the game) is frankly counter productive towards anyone accomplishing anything other than proving who thinks they are the wotmud schoolyard bully.

[daal]

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that while we don't need to be sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya together we also shouldn't actively be assholes toward each other.

[Meshi]

Sorry, I know you are trying to communicate intellectually, but I have to point out that I stopped playing actively 5 years ago. To illustrate that point, I don't know who Rig is or why everyone is bullying him.

I know that the fundamental problems of the game haven't changed though. I've played sporadically since. But I have no real attachment to the game anymore and I have developed personally since quitting the game many years ago. I relate more to the person who posted recently that they felt nostalgic and checked the forums and the feeling passed.

Does that make me more or less qualified to comment on the health of the game; I don't know. It depends on whether you want a numerous playerbase at all costs or a less numerous quality playerbase. And that all depends on the quality of the game

[Rig]

Ima bully

[Meshi]

I guess my point is, that when the cross-race trading rules and "you should stay IC at all times" rule got relaxed (ignored) then the quality of the mud went down. Daal knows what I am talking about.

Trading itself was always a grey area, once it became legitimised, then cross-race trading, then equipment pooling became common. Then we got clan chests, and then clan storage, and with clan masters, clan members got a huge advantage, and clans tried to push that advantage. Then ordinary players (the ones who didn't have 3+ characters in 3+ clans) got turned off because of an unlevel playing field and over-expansion (which includes Seanchan) and then the mud suddenly had too few players for the clans (and races). Maybe because some clans were bonused more than others but what do I know. Maybe the administrators should ask a kindergarten teacher for the basic rules of dealing with small children and extrapolate to the MUD.

[Masaj]

However our joint interest is the continuance of this community (and if we are lucky it's eventual regrowth). For if you'd take a step back from the your microscope that you have focused on your own personal goals you would see that without people to interact with, both positive (grouping for xp, smobs, other adventure) or negative (killing for equipment or qp), you too would run out of methods to advance.

I think the notion that scalps = advancement is pretty moronic and the reason why people end up hitting brick walls when eventually trying for stuff that takes some semblance of social competence or understanding how to interact with people. The ability to accumulate QPs is great and all, but the people who tend to try to do that without really pulling their weight have tended to weed themselves out of other things pretty successfully. (edit: case in point, seeing the posts made since I started writing this.)

As such, regardless of your own personal goals you are also beholden to you fellow player and the downright hostility towards each other (including trying to troll Rig off the game) is frankly counter productive towards anyone accomplishing anything other than proving who thinks they are the wotmud schoolyard bully.

As opposed to revealing the Reformed Saints of WoTMUD, who suddenly can't recognize banter between people who generally work together and play fine together. I don't really disagree with your main point (any individually great PKer who doesn't shout out to the endless combinations of groups and people that have followed them into battle are just kidding themselves), but I still think you're overstating the actual air of hostility. This isn't exactly harkening back to the WoTMAD days -- say, how much damage (damug?!) do you think WoTMAD did to the atmosphere of this game at its peak?

Does that make me more or less qualified to comment on the health of the game; I don't know.

I don't know if you being gone for half a decade or your "personal development" would really make you sound less "qualified" (whatever that means) than this kind of nonsensical assessment that relies on a weird timeline possibly could:

Trading itself was always a grey area, once it became legitimised, then cross-race trading, then equipment pooling became common. Then we got clan chests, and then clan storage, and with clan masters, clan members got a huge advantage, and clans tried to push that advantage. Then ordinary players (the ones who didn't have 3+ characters in 3+ clans) got turned off because of an unlevel playing field and over-expansion (which includes Seanchan) and then the mud suddenly had too few players for the clans (and races). Maybe because some clans were bonused more than others but what do I know.

What Daal meant "intellectually" isn't tough to understand and he was pretty clear about it: he just wants people to be nicer. The flip side of it is this: this game has never relied on people being nicer to each other so much as just tolerating each other and not being outright assholes to each other (which we still do and I would say the vast majority of people actually aren't assholes to each other), and just because its dying the natural death of a 20 year-old text-based game that squandered its peak with pretty mediocre administration doesn't mean some switch is going to get flipped.

[Meshi]

However our joint interest is the continuance of this community (and if we are lucky it's eventual regrowth). For if you'd take a step back from the your microscope that you have focused on your own personal goals you would see that without people to interact with, both positive (grouping for xp, smobs, other adventure) or negative (killing for equipment or qp), you too would run out of methods to advance.

I think the notion that scalps = advancement is pretty moronic and the reason why people end up hitting brick walls when eventually trying for stuff that takes some semblance of social competence or understanding how to interact with people. The ability to accumulate QPs is great and all, but the people who tend to try to do that without really pulling their weight have tended to weed themselves out of other things pretty successfully. (edit: case in point, seeing the posts made since I started writing this.)

As such, regardless of your own personal goals you are also beholden to you fellow player and the downright hostility towards each other (including trying to troll Rig off the game) is frankly counter productive towards anyone accomplishing anything other than proving who thinks they are the wotmud schoolyard bully.

As opposed to revealing the Reformed Saints of WoTMUD, who suddenly can't recognize banter between people who generally work together and play fine together. I don't really disagree with your main point (any individually great PKer who doesn't shout out to the endless combinations of groups and people that have followed them into battle are just kidding themselves), but I still think you're overstating the actual air of hostility. This isn't exactly harkening back to the WoTMAD days -- say, how much damage (damug?!) do you think WoTMAD did to the atmosphere of this game at its peak?

Does that make me more or less qualified to comment on the health of the game; I don't know.

I don't know if you being gone for half a decade or your "personal development" would really make you sound less "qualified" (whatever that means) than this kind of nonsensical assessment that relies on a weird timeline possibly could:

Trading itself was always a grey area, once it became legitimised, then cross-race trading, then equipment pooling became common. Then we got clan chests, and then clan storage, and with clan masters, clan members got a huge advantage, and clans tried to push that advantage. Then ordinary players (the ones who didn't have 3+ characters in 3+ clans) got turned off because of an unlevel playing field and over-expansion (which includes Seanchan) and then the mud suddenly had too few players for the clans (and races). Maybe because some clans were bonused more than others but what do I know.

What Daal meant "intellectually" isn't tough to understand and he was pretty clear about it: he just wants people to be nicer. The flip side of it is this: this game has never relied on people being nicer to each other so much as just tolerating each other and not being outright assholes to each other (which we still do and I would say the vast majority of people actually aren't assholes to each other), and just because its dying the natural death of a 20 year-old text-based game that squandered its peak with pretty mediocre administration doesn't mean some switch is going to get flipped.

**;**
You mean, you disagree?

That's fine, but if you don't understand the word qualified how can you ever run for political office?

Believe it or not, with a strong consistent system there are a lot more people being nice to each other and fewer assholes. These things are not unrelated.

P.S. WoTMAD was post the peak of WoTMUD. At least according to me. Some older players might say that even the wotmud forums (i.e. the first online forums) were past the peak. etc. etc. (It's not our fault you weren't around for it)

[suern]

Dal’s forums were the peak of wotmud for the record.

Then Nass got pissy because he couldn’t control them so we got the wotmud forums. Then we got rabid moderators. A bunch of adults took issue to rabid moderation. People quit

Nass remade blight terrible, he took dung for it. Lashed out. More people quit.

Seanchan side came along. Was rubbish. More people quit.

Bad staff drove away good staff, more people quit.

Ddos attack. More people quit.

And here we are today wondering why leet jerks aren’t nice to lame jerks. When really it’s just the same 10 people yelling at each other