Compiled by Sanvean, last updated 8/30/2004.
- I emailed the account and those bastards haven't mailed me back yet! Why?
- I wished up and no one answered me! Why?
- How do people go about getting on the staff of Armageddon?
- How do I get more karma?
- What's the big deal with OOC stuff, anyhow?
- We need more players! What can I do to help?
- What else can I do to help out with the game?
- Who funds ginka?
- What do the different staff members do?
- Why did the game used to go down every Saturday?
- Why don't you like making baby objects?
I emailed the account and those bastards haven't mailed me back yet! Why?A single person handles the account mail at any given time, alternating between Halaster, Morgenes, Nessalin, Raesanos, and Sanvean for two week stints. We keep it to a single person in order to make sure things are being handled consistently, and that someone has the illusion that they know what's going on. You are usually better off submitting questions, complaints, etc., through the request tool created by Raesanos.
Things that might delay a reply:
- Needing more information, as in having to mail another staff member or player, hunt through the code or world, or having to do other research, to find out the answer. Remember to include your account name on everything you send.
- Being unclear about what you want, thereby forcing Sanvean to resort to arcane rituals and consulting obscure prophets to figure out what's needed. Generally, be precise, give us all the information you can, and specify what result you're looking up. Example of what not to do: "Feature X doesn't work!" Example of what to do: "Feature X doesn't seem to be working. When I do a, the result is b, and I would expect c."
- Frequency of your email, since if you are mailing the account every day, your email may get shelved in favor of someone who requests attention less often. Similarly, with requests that require a prolonged back and forth, the priority may start to slip.
- Being a pain in the ass - for example, making unrealistic demands or requests, expecting to be given priority over other players, Imm-fishing (i.e. emailing or PM-ing other staff members about a request being overseen by someone else), etc.
- Tone of your email (email starting out 'You fuckers' is low on the list). See also: Being a pain in the ass.
- Nature of your request, since things that require detailed or lengthy feedback may be put aside until there is sufficient time to give the email the attention it deserves.
- Other matters. If you're emailing in during the week most people are gone for the AIM, or a weekend of a huge RPT, things may be slowed down.
- We never received it, which has been known to happen on occasion.
- A reply was sent, but you didn't receive it, due to the vagaries of hotmail, firewalls, or Armageddon still being on numerous spamblock lists as a result of a player's infected computer.
Hints for getting emails answered:
Include your account name.
Don't ramble. Just give us the information, as clearly and succinctly as possible. Don't spend a lot of space speculating about the code if you don't know how it works; don't tell us your character's life story unless that's the point of the email. I'm sure you're a swell person, but I don't want to have to wade through six paragraphs on your feelings about hamsters in order to find out that you need a crash reimbursement.
Similarly, don't include a lot of dreck about how you're sure we're going to ignore your letter. Don't add jabs and digs and bring up the time five years ago when someone no longer on staff was rude in a response to your wish, or how you're sure that your latest character died because of a staff member but you know we wouldn't believe you so you're not going to mention it. Put the information in that you want responded to, and leave it at that. For the love of all that's holy.
I wished up and no one answered me! Why?Different immortals have varying degrees of ability to answer your wish. For example, Storytellers are not allowed to directly contact players, so if there are only Storytellers on, you might be better off emailing the account if it's a direct request for information. Beyond that, other factors apply. For one thing, there may be no one available at the time you wish, since generally immortals are not simply hanging out waiting for wishes. If you're not specific about your wish, people may be reluctant to answer, since they don't know how long it will take. Generally, it is much better to say exactly what you need, i.e. 'If someone could animate this templar, I need to purchase a merchant's license.' rather than 'Could someone animate this npc?' If I'm about to go to work, I want to know if answering the wish is going to take five minutes, or a couple of hours.
Try to be reasonably polite in your wishes. Wishes that start with 'Yo!' are irritating, and people who wish up constantly are often ignored or no-wished.
Immortals may also be reluctant to interfere with another person's clan. If it's a clan related request, such as being set up for the Blackmoon, or getting keys for the Borsail estate loaded, you might be much better off emailing your clan immortal and setting up a time you can meet online.
If the nature of the request is not immediate, consider putting it in your objective. Immortals can see a list of objectives for online players, and this allows you to catch someone who has enough time on their hands to take care of your request.
How do people go about getting on the staff of Armageddon?Periodically, calls for application are posted in the Staff Announcements section. Anyone can apply. The application questions are your chance to sell yourself to us. A group is selected from among the applicants and interviewed; a sub-set of those are accepted for staff.
- Creativity and/or writing talent
- Knowledge of the game and its world
- Ability to function as part of the team
- Integrity
- Sufficient time and energy to dedicate for the game
How do I get more karma?Play well. Contribute to the game by recruiting players, inciting play, reporting typos/bugs, writing documentation, posting well on the GDB. Avoid flaming people. Don't cheat or multiplay. Run varied and interesting roles, as opposed to the same character over and over. Don't log out the minute you think an immortal is in the room. Roll with the punches; life may be difficult for your character -- deal with it rather than complaining.
I've posted on the Discussion Board several times about karma, sponsored characters and requirements of roleplaying --
- October 6, 1998, on karma
- January 18, 2001, on karma and sponsored characters
- January 19, 2001, on why magickers are karma-required characters
- February 9, 2001, on interacting with npcs
- March 2, 2001, on karma and trust
- March 3, 2001, more on karma and trust
- March 7, 2001 Internal and external roleplay
What's the big deal with OOC stuff, anyhow?OOC information is like potato chips. It's hard to eat just one. And often OOC information can spoil in game plotlines, which pisses off the immortals who have been working hard on those plotlines. It's a slippery slope, starting with insignificant details spiraling downward to depths like 'Hey, my character just died, go loot the corpse.' Most information should be discovered during the course of play, and by sharing OOC information with another person, you may be spoiling the game for them.
Thanas addressed this in his post on the GDB.
We need more players! What can I do to help?You can do a lot of things to promote the game.
- Go click on the topmudsites link on the main page or at the top of the discussion board in order to vote for us, if you want a quick and simple way.
- Write reviews of the mud for Mudconnector, Top Mud Sites, or one of the other mud listing services.
- Mention us in Usenet postings.
- Tell your friends about us.
- Help us retain players by becoming a newbie helper, adding to the introductory documentation, or by simply being patient with new players in the game.
What else can I do to contribute to the game?Contributions players have made include: writing helpfiles, helping revise web documentation, submitting documentation, driving RPTs, coordinating in-game events, writing npcs, objects and rooms, making suggestions, providing feedback, coordinating RL meetings such as the APM, maintaining Armageddon related websites -- in short, anything and everything.
Who funds ginka?Ginka has been funded by the Overlords, generally, although some amount of money (approximately $150 dollars over the course of two years) has been raised by the link to Amazon.com. Ginka's costs include machine hardware, cost of domain registration, connection to the net, and probably at some point in the future, advertising.
We have not been taking player donations, but are looking into some method of accepting anonymous donations over the web at the moment.
What do the different staff members do?Armageddon has a fairly strict staff structure, made up of three levels.
- Storytellers do a multitude of things, from running plotlines to overseeing clans, making items, or taking responsibility for specific aspects of the game. Storytellers are not allowed to interact directly with players, except through NPCs.
- Highlords supervise Storytellers, enforce rules, and oversee major aspects of the game. Some Highlords are coders: Morgenes and Tiernan, while others are specifically world Highlords: Bhagharva, Krrx and Savak. Saikun is a special case, and oversees the machine, for which we offer up daily thanks and burnt offerings, for fear that his son, Nicholas, will rise up and devour us all.
- Overlords take care of large matters like machine funding, overall policy, game direction, maintaining the website, staffing decisions and maintaining faqs like this one.
Why did the game used to go down on Saturdays?Saturdays used to be reserved for immortals to make changes and updates. Among the things that happened were:
- New code tested. This involved frequent crashes and reboots, and included compiled code as well as smaller programs written in dmpl.
- Immortals went through the bugs/typos/ideas files to rest and resolve issues.
- New rooms were linked in, new npcs and objects placed, shop stocks switched, etc.
- Staff members consulted on changes and ideas, got new additions approved, brainstorming sessions occured, etc.
The change, facilitated by new code from Xygax, to no more downtimes was announced on April 1, 2006, and the staff refused to say whether or not it was a joke for a week before letting people know that it was. The game currently goes down briefly on Wednesday mornings in order to do backups.
Some of these things go on continuously throughout the week; others require that the changes be made while no players are on. Because staff members are scattered across the globe, we allow a significant chunk of time for immortal day.
Why the name "Sanvean"?Gazargo found this explanation of the name, but the truth of the matter is, Nessalin picked it for me. It is the name of a terrific Dead Can Dead song .
Why don't you like baby objects?I've been trying to think why I find these requests particularly annoying. I think part of it is the assumption that we don't have much to do except make custom objects for players, while another is the egocentricity of asking that part of the database be dedicated to a single player. Perhaps it's simply that often the tone of these requests is... less than gracious, while another is that I've seen babies roleplayed out virtually so well that I think it's a little silly that people ask for an object representing one. Beyond that, when they're objects, bad things happen: people steal them from your inventory or they get lost in crashes. Don't even get me started on the time some prankish imm had set a baby object to type food, and someone, for some reason, decided to type "taste baby".