Scheveningen

I'll paypal a coder up to $50 to be able to get a PR pushed through that permits for this. I don't currently like the default looks of the branded and unbranded prosthetics and I believe anyone with prosthetics and especially synthetics that wish to switch up their arms or legs, should be able to color code their limbs to whatever aesthetic they're trying to achieve.

I like the idea, personally. I do think we need to rehabilitate the EE from being a punch of forgotten-about non-SCC corporate jobbers, as well as prevent their reputation as The Bad Guy from resurfacing. They should just be written as a competitor with less than lukewarm relations, but not outright hostile as the literal pirate xeno-genociders that the SFA+SRF are. With regards to any ship weapons, they shouldn't be able to be equipped with anything that can compete with the Horizon, obviously, but I think in comparison to any other ship they should definitely outgun even other Solarian corvettes. They literally openly supply the Alliance, so it'd be a neat foil to the Alliance military to see the EE's scout/patrol ships actually be more specialized rather than general purpose for self-defense. Silvie's ideas seem to be good additives to the overall suggestion and I'd like to see that incorporated as well.

I endorse the applicant. They're a pretty good roleplayer and community member and I do feel like they can be trusted with this - as to whether the application is lore sound is a bit beyond me as I'm not terribly up to date on Unathi lore.

haw haw haw

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxoOVK_P_UeJ2HvRoSxKJzfoHR7iI8Z9yl

Oh, right, and as someone who has been an unfortunate witness to big community divides that Omi was talking about, let me tell you why those actually happen: It's not because of a 'fundamental but mostly irreconcilable difference in server policy.' Those community divides explicitly occur when segment of the community is being treated like shit by the people who run the community. That's why they leave with a bunch of people when things escalate to their boiling point. However, I don't think we're close to that. But it would be smart if we didn't try to test that line, did we? Because the Aurora staff writ large have been pretty good at not making childishly foolish policy decisions post-Cassy, so exploding the community has to be done pretty much on purpose with a lot of pig-headed behavior. So let's not do this. Let's square this issue away at the table and recognize we all need to take responsibility for the things we say, and forgive that, and then circle around to the actual central question which is, "How do we fix the issues people are facing so that we are not at the very least eternally pissed at each other?"

that being said cael is doing a magnificent job actually explaining some of the issues with, y'know, actual facts, and being respectful about it, so bravo there.

I love how you can completely have a discussion like this derailed by simply diluting the crux of the argument as if it were TYRANNICAL "VOCAL MINORITY" THAT EXISTS OUTSIDE THE "REAL" COMMUNITY (them) versus Noblebright Pillars of the Community That Actually Play (us). There is some really unfortunate proof of what people were trying to deliberately avoid openly saying for months that there exists an uncomfortable thought process within staff that the only people who are of any value are the content creators, rather than trying to push back against this shitty mentality. Think I'm full of shit? Search up how many times any variant of these buzz phrases come up: "vocal minority", "you don't even play", "your expectations are self-produced", "Do you even map, bro?", any variant of "well that's your opinion" whilst also comically holding an opinion that things are actually fine rather than not-fine -- what does this rhetoric actually function to serve besides being a weak distraction to reverse onto specific individuals that dare to speak their mind around here? You can't get away with anything besides passive-aggressive language around here anymore, so I'm really curious to hear what the naysayers of "oh everything's fine trust me bro" really think about the current situation as well as their critics. Aside from the rare person on page 1 of any thread that always comedically misses the point, a majority of the people that have any genuine criticism about the state of things are attempting to get through to you guys in the most respectful way possible that they are not overly fond of the way things are going presently -- not that they expect this final event to be cancelled -- but I think if there is some serious discontent leading up to what may be happening this coming week or the week after, that the state of things on the player enjoyment side is not the best it has ever been. The last time there was this much discontent was during The Warbling, but at least there was a semblance of an idea that the arc didn't go well from the staff side and there was a fairly concerted effort by whomever would inherit the reins next to sweep the issues under the rug and fix/address all the other problems that the conclusion of that arc created. Mildly relevant tangent: it should be a bannable offense from this point on to imply someone's opinion doesn't matter because they either "don't play" or "don't play enough." The merit and content of someone's opinion should be judged by the merit and content of what they state alone, not by attacking the speaker for not logging on every single day when the majority of people that have stuck around for years and years have to do things that adults must do like show up for work so they can pay for their own lifestyle. And if you don't like the idea of, say, not being able to pull this kind of exclusionary rhetoric on at least someone in the community, take that rhetoric and shove it. Make it normal to respect each other again.

Personally, my sentiment is that everyone should get a turn, and there be variety so that there isn't immediate exhaustion seeing the same factions reappear in subsequent arcs again. I'm not asking for fast events to be churned out, but more importantly to see greater variety in lore developer arcs in rotations. If not explicitly because I am a little tired of interacting with Solarian warlordism for the uncounted next instance over.

I don't think we need to go back to the station, necessarily. I believe the issue is the ambition with trying to deal with different types of themes in a canonical sense conflicts with the round-by-round basis that the actual playerbase is more accustomed to dealing with, which is a larger bane to this server's enjoyability than what a canon event supposedly would be in the eyes of a naysayer. Let me tell you what the actual problem is... The general system of the game itself still deals with the SS13ification of goofy antags and the general expectation that, on a round-by-round basis, there must be an antagonist. While I agree with the idea that there must either be a free role that can cause trouble for the primary population and present a genuine challenge that they must deal with in order to tell a good story later, the weakness of certain game modes (vampire, technomancer, and changeling) makes it such that the average experience of a regular player is that you get very tired and worn out dealing with the exact same rotation of antagonists is that no one wants to play them, really, because they absolutely suck to play relative to how fun and wacky the 3rd parties are to play. So when the playerbase is expected to make a different transition between the grindy, shitty, goofy antag-filled experience we currently have where a small minority of people are actually willingly playing antagonist and finding out quickly why no one does (people are OOCly antagonistic to antags, because we've all dealt with them in their current form too many times already), the result is a jarred playerbase that was expecting something else. Far and away, I'll say, the quality of canonical events, no matter how chaotic or shitty in outcome, is absolutely superior to a generic round with vampires that spend 2:00 stealthsucking from character's throats until actually going loud because the antagonist design is fundamentally flawed. Of course this isn't an issue with traitor/rev/ninja/burglars, because you can still do WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT! You can't do whatever the hell you want as techno/vamp/ling. You are forced into a specific style of play/antagonism that you are the most predictable to deal with, and the resulting experience is the exact same every round. Essentially, what I'm saying is, the fundamental issue as well is not just, or even explicitly with the lore, but the fact that the round-to-round basis of how antags come to play most often doesn't even let the stories that are told through the lore writing actually come into play, because the fucking antagonist is anywhere between the major offenders of ling/vampire/techno and more tentatively cult but at least playing cult can be really fun since you're focused around building a team before going absolutely bonkers and insane. The prior three I mentioned are mostly crappy, lone antagonists that easily get obliterated by any pushback from the crew that want to survive. It makes for a really jarring transition is what I'm saying, when we come back to the occasionally-once-a-week event where it only happens for a single round in a day and then immediately ends after 2 or so hours. Don't get me started on people who seriously whine when folks actually democratically vote continue for a round they wish to keep playing... Basically, we're dealing with a shitty status quo at the moment, and the staleness of how things are outside of events is starting to make people really bitter and annoyed when they get into events because they get into the thought that nothing is going to get better because what happens in an event only matters within the context of that event arc. But once the event ends and you get back to the standard rotation of "Oh boy we have to kill the armory thief again" or "time to decapitate the changeling once again", I can see why we get this rhetoric of "you don't even play" from people who generally speaking only play during events to escape that. But do we really need a status quo where people are taking events so ultra-seriously and cynically because the game at its standard playthroughs just really blows incredibly hard right now? Solution: Kill the wacky game modes everyone is tired of, replace them with more 3rd parties that are permitted to antagonize. Hell, give us an infestation/alien-like game mode (not in secret rotation) with greimorians if we want rounds that are just shoot-em-ups with some roleplay inside them. At least people would know what they're voting for. The whole of the secret rotation needs to be cleaned out in the interim if we're not getting Dynamic anytime soon.

"Almost no one wants to read the articles" has probably been the best post I've ever seen written on here. I am not an article head. I don't think anyone who has to buy their own bread and pay their other bills often finds it an engaging use of time to be doing anything other than sitting down, relaxing, and logging on to interact with the community here. Reading articles is a very solitary task that often leads to reading the same information already written down relative to whatever faction is being spoken about 50 times over in the past. I've just today read several articles across the various newsposts just to see if anything has fundamentally changed, and the answer is, well, no, not really. The ultimate shortcoming that is a result of these arcs is they completely disable other areas of the lore team from being able to fundamentally do anything besides write articles and rework aspects of their jurisdiction they don't strongly agree with being part of the lore relative to what their predecessors might've written. That fucking sucks! No one can say this is good! "Well, it logistically isn't feasible to be running even two arcs simultaneously" is a very good counterpoint and all, but the current status quo is that it takes 2 months tops to conclude a singular event arc. That's a lot of time! It makes me wonder exactly how long it takes to get assets and writing down for what the next event arc. It's a lot of time being spent doing one thing at a time, and all the members of the other parts of the team can do is wait for their turn and plan out whether their corner of the lore is going to be relevant or not. And it's really difficult for us on the outside to really foresee in any resemblance whether that's going to happen since we obviously don't get to see internal planning documentation or longform staff discussions. God knows I've been on the inside before and a single conversation about something small can take hours. I don't know, could we get a timeline of when the last Vaurca and Unathi lore arcs were? I'm hoping the last significant event from the Sintasphere wasn't the Aut'akh reveal because I genuinely cannot remember what actually occurred within the 2021 timeframe since I wasn't here for most of it.

I can't honestly accept that you guys have done your job correctly and in good faith when you posted out a screenshot WHICH WAS EXPLICITLY MEANT TO BE PRIVATE where I report a completely separate issue and, as above, deliberately avoided posting as part of this issue -- on account of realizing over time that I had messed up and that I was harshing on Sputnik way too much. It really seems like you're attempting to publicly embarrass me because you're exercising very little good faith or discretion whatsoever. I see zero reason to post that out there, and it just stirs up this drama further rather than concluding it. I was almost willing to accept personal fault here and sit on the ban until you leaked DMs between myself and a staff member to make me look worse. This is just dumb and embarrassing. Close this thread, but this is not resolved whatsoever. I will literally wait out the discord ban at this rate but it is absolutely unethical and gross how you've chosen to deal with this.

- If I do not see direct examples or evidence of this "OOC metagrudging" that is claimed, I am not going to be convinced that this ban is justified, and that and I will instead assert it was doled out arbitrarily and unfairly. - It is extremely easy to post many examples of someone's behavior and falsely assert malicious intent behind it. I am fully aware of another individual involved in a similar case who received dialogue in-depth from staff regarding their behavior, to the extent that person was actually given the opportunity to move on, improve, and keep playing. Why was the dialogue with the reported person (me, in this case) completely skipped in this case, and the assumptions regarding my involvement and intent immediately assumed to be true? On-server you're expected to actually speak to people regarding a reported situation in-game, and explain to them your reasoning before you issue a ban should that become necessary. Is this suddenly not the case with regards to moderation of the discord server? I know for a fact it is not, because the aforementioned "other individual" was not instantly issued a ban. - I have already stated the in-character antagonism between my character and Sputnik's pre-dates any negative gaffes I have had with Sputnik. The content and escalation of said IC antagonism has not increased or decreased since then, either, and by definition this is not metagrudging, because the behavior has been exactly the same. Mistyping the ban reason wrong the first time is one thing, trying to backpedal this into accusing me of metagrudging is incredibly insulting, as I am a long time player and I have never once done this, and never will. It is incredibly ironic for you to confess that "you've been away from Aurora from awhile" while also giving me that "you don't even play" spiel. This is deliberately smearing. - The idea that I have to ignore interacting with someone's character because of the assertion that I was asked to limit my OOC interactions with someone on the player side is not a rule and has never been a rule, nor is there precedent for it that I am aware of. It is neither explicitly against the rules to interact with someone's character in this manner (which, according to the above screenshots, is par for the course anti-Solarian antagonism if not generally below the average line, which is entirely on purpose on my side because I am fully aware to not be over-the-top) nor implicitly either. It is very off-base to extend rule 1 to issue a ban because my character called another a "goober." I have seen far worse stated and said on server between Dominians/Solarians vs. anyone else, and I see zero moderation or reports regarding that. So, what gives? - My attempts to DM you was to get much needed context as to what was going on on your (the staff's) side that nobody deigned to even screenshotdump exactly what I supposedly did 'wrong' and then ask me to explain it. I believe it can be universally agreed that you should talk to someone, with provided evidence in hand to refute any bad faith arguments, before banning them, yes? I am extremely easy to talk to when I am given the base level of respect that any human being should be given when prodded with a serious issue, and when I am allowed to explain myself or ask questions for context. I become much more difficult to talk to and get frustrated when I am treated like garbage and that I am not given a civil explanation for anything - nor the chance to get more than surface level information when something I don't understand happens, like any human does. - My personal view is, I do not think the basis of this ban is correct, nor do I think how you carried out your responsibilities as a volunteer of the community was fair or correct, either.

BYOND Key: Scheveningen Staff BYOND Key: Sophie/Peppermint(?) Game ID: Relay discord. Reason for complaint: "You were told to stop targeting people ICly and staff would handle the issue, but have continued now icly. Take time out to cool off" - Discord Ban length 7 days Evidence/logs/etc: So this was a surprise and came pretty far out of left field for me to see today when I got into my car to warm up and get ready to leave my place of work (it was snowing today!). Since it genuinely did not occur to me the context that this ban was actually for, I asked the banning staff member what this was about, because this discord ban of considerable length immediately confused me. I went back into the DMs I shared with Cybs, and then it occurred to me. It was about the Downfall Discourse.™ Anyway, I said the movie sucked, Sputnik said I was discrediting a "great film" depicting the last days of Hitler's regime, I said it still sucked as a movie, he replies by saying that I felt that because I was "very disconnected and distant from the events" - probably because I wasn't alive when the Holocaust happened, sorry, born in the wrong generation I guess. The conversation immediately ends after a few closing comments because everyone knows anything related to the discussion of WW2 is utterly dumb and yet it still gets brought up anyway. Moving on, this is the context of what Cybs told me "no", which was to not allude anyone to Nazi ideology. That's a very specific "don't do this on relay" behavior and that seems like a pretty acceptable request, given all discussion of WW2-aligned stories with non-experts always ends up very dumb. This tangent only exists to avoid posting the screenshot I replied to Soph with, which contained information of another staff matter that doesn't need to be brought up. I hate Downfall. It is a bad movie to talk about. Nobody bring up Downfall again. However, this has very little to do with what the ban reason actually appears to be, which is Soph accusing me of metagrudging through IC channels. It really was a waste of time to explain the Downfall discourse™, but none of this makes sense without that, as that bad interaction with Sputnik is being directly used as evidence for metagrudging through IC channels. The evidence I am later linked by Soph, however, only displays these two quips from my character against Arges. This needs additional context, so I will also cite a few witnesses of several strung-out relay conversations between Yasmin and Arges, and Arges with anyone else, for that matter. They can largely testify, for the most part, that any IC antagonism going on between Yasmin and Arges is business-as-usual rivalry and in-department shitflinging. @Misiek1001 @Sycmos @MattAtlas The following will be put into a spoiler as it is long and details that there is in fact, in-character goings on on my side and on Sputnik's. To the claim that I am metagrudging someone else because I am playing a character to be antagonistic to someone else's a specific way: It is not true. I have zero intent of pushing this person out of the community, and have not made any purposeful attempt to do so. While I have issues with Sputnik as a player, it does not mean I am out to get them OOCly - and again, nor was I intending to, my character was interacting with yours only. Nor did I have motivation to have their character pushed out from the server. I am not suggesting that the resolution for them is to "just deal with it," because that is callous and especially insensitive. I am open to talking to them personally to discuss it at this point, but that is not the point of this complaint. Assuming there was an investigation done on your staff's side of things, why was my input on my involvement in this situation never asked for, and why did you immediately decide to invest full confidence in your own, limited context, and then ban me essentially without warning? It is an insane investigative misstep to not question everyone involved prior to deciding what the proper action is. You presumed I was guilty and banned me without a conversation prior to it. Currently I feel like I'm the one being pushed out by staff in the only community circles that have any regular conversation which is the community discords, through being banned for a whole week without warning or open staff channels. You blocked me on Discord while I was in the midst of making my final remark, too, so this feels pretty especially personal, especially with the smug remark that "you don't even play" that seriously needs to be removed from community lexicon. It is effectively a passive-aggressive way of stating that someone doesn't matter because they aren't as involved in the community as the people who log on everyday. I cannot but think this is bad faith going on from the handling staffmember and the individuals reviewing this behind staff channels, because this appears horribly mishandled and I possess zero communication from staff about the progression of this situation. It seems more that you chose this was the situation that seemed convenient to remove me from the community space for a week.

my eyes glaze over the essay-like proportions that this bloated thread has grotesquely malformed into, knowing that there exist worse and more incomprehensible eldritch abominations and that I have gazed upon them already. "But truly, this place has served its purpose once more, it is a glimpse of 2017 once again", a reflection of my storied past tells me, which drives me to the urge to drink and smoke. God, please, end this thread. Smite it down once and for all and leave this to the maintainers to decide what to do. It is eminently clear how much worth the input of the broader community actually is if this is what gets posted here.

i think this is the only reasonable use for alt titles