kyres1

On 1 : You're right. These words definitely fill out the gaps left in my head between stuff that I've said here. On 2 : Yeah. It's clear that, looking between both of our posts, a long stretch of intense coordinated vision in the entire team of (not very many) spriters is necessary to achieve the enigmatic artstyle we all crave. It could be argued that having less people makes it easier to find a direction, but this assumes that, even with our fucking fantastic technical ability between the spriters we currently employ, none of them have plans or other shit to do in general. But, "long stretch of intense coordinated vision" is just unfeasible. As we demonstrated with the 3/4 stuff alongside Konyang, there is more often than not an ongoing project or projects that demand the attention of devs long-term. At the same time, to completely assess and come up with a new direction, the slate would need to be completely clear, and that means halting a lot of development that is plain unnecessary. Basically, I get what you mean. You did a great job at putting into words the things that I'd hoped to hear to resolve our conflicted vision of it. I wish I could've labeled this as anything other than a "complaint," because this was really what I was after. Achieving this sort of dialogue is really difficult with our polar-opposite timezones, especially, and my own schedule sucks ass sometimes. It makes sense that even after years we'd still be at odds on these topics, but with the stuff you've said here, I feel myself seeing a hell of a lot more reason and nuance to your takes on this. This is, like above, exactly what I was after yes.

I get how you might get the impression I've said this, but I didn't. This complaint is in regards to what the words on the complaint says and nothing else. That is to say, porting behavior. I do agree that you were basically brand-spanking new to the role of lead spriter when we were handling the 3/4 project, though. However, a lot of my frustration stems from these delays and coordination issues occurring alongside another project that the team was tackling, being Konyang. We were basically lost in the sauce figuring out if we need 3/4 first, or Konyang first, and eventually settled on 3/4. But, because of these issues in getting to that point, we had basically spent months on the matter. These issues are not exacerbated by your mismanagement. I honestly don't even want to quantify your quality as a manager because that wouldn't be right, given how new you were. But we go back to the first bit of my reply here. "Porting behavior." These points are missing things. Matt didn't do a veto, because there was no disagreement against 3/4 once I was actually told what it clearly was, in definition. Before this, yes, I said that 3/4 was ass and I didn't want it. I also didn't know what 3/4 was until this discussion that inevitably led me to agree with it overall. I have no memory of a veto at all, here, towards me or you. I do recall asking Matt, like I said in the first post, for decisions to be imposed on the constant exchanges between us. "Artstyle" is hard to estimate when the number of ports and direct model-replica of other servers increases while the stuff we're trying to make unique has no time to develop. Sure, you can QC and refine the unique sprites we have into being better or worse. But by porting anything over it, we're hitting a complete reset button on any progress we've made in the first place towards anything unique. Ultimately, what this does is make us have a collection of ill-fitted together sprites from a variety of servers that don't link together in any artistic capacity, much less anything technical like palette choice or perspective. I got around these things by spriting towards what I perceived was our artstyle. Could I define it? No. I couldn't even come close, because as above, the disparity between end goals here is extremely far apart. In effect, you want us to look serviceable and not have us wasting time by spriting redundantly. The views of myself and the conclusions I have viewed by the community, or staff, or whatever, are completely contradictory to that. I want to have everything we possibly can sourced from inside the community bar none. Zero. Emphasis on possibly, here; it's obvious we can't sprite literally everything, that's crazy. In short, no. There is not and never has been solid "art style direction" given by anybody. Your guides that you've placed on the wiki without any input before are not something I ever considered, but that's something I should've brought up to begin with; nobody agreed on whatever's there. Ever. I certainly didn't, and definitely not when I was staff. As far as I know, nobody even pointed it out at all. This is, however, around the same time we threw out our unique main page for a streamlined version of a different server's - in effect, another port. This all boils down to you thinking that porting extraneous content is something that doesn't deserve scrutiny and hasn't ever been contested or a concern at a higher level than the spriters and yourself. That much is something I claim to be false. Since people seem plenty shameless in heart-reacting my post like it's some stupid ass joke, let me be absolutely clear both to you and to the readers of this thread; Wezzy has done way more to contribute to the status of this server as a single staff member than an overwhelmingly large percentage of the people we've had in this community. Wezzy is not just a porter-of-things. Wezzy and me disagree. A lot. Wezzy frustrates me a lot. I frustrate Wezzy a lot. This stuff is visible and goes back a long time because we've been staff together a long time. That said, devaluing your work would be piss poor behavior. It is so piss poor that, if I hadn't been given the opportunity to clarify, I'd expect you to report it as just breaking the rules outright. So, whatever you take from this complaint, do not perceive it as reducing your worth as a contributor or staff member at all. The absolute best outcome of all of this is to literally just conclude these disagreements, I'd say. I think that you have the tools at your disposal as-is to unify everyone's collective vision into one. I'm not saying it has to be your vision. It could be head staff's, or whoever. I don't think any of this would be as clear-as-day without making this a publicized complaint, though. Just don't misinterpret this as an attack against you, and do not let people uninvolved in this steer you wrong.

BYOND Key: kyres1 Staff BYOND Key: Wezzy/wowzewow/alsoandanswer Game ID: N/A Reason for complaint: Excessive leaning on porting/overwriting unique content and behavior that devalues work put in by others, team members and contributors alike. Evidence/logs/etc: The spring cleaning PR here highlights the latest problem. It's what set me off to make this complaint. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/18318 This PR is an over-write of existing content for absolutely zero purpose. Considering all the effort still-existing staff, and myself put into this content over the course of the last year- even working alongside already-strenuous projects like the 3/4ths conversion, it's plain dumb to see this stuff get ported over. It is hard to encapsulate exactly how goofy this is, and I even find it hard to believe the PR will be approved regardless of this complaint. But, to give you a good example, imagine having all the work done and brought to an acceptable level in every degree; and then, in the last minute, swapping everything over to be content that none of your own team made. That would feel a little like you wasted your time even trying, wouldn't it? Does it matter how much time was spent? Because there was a lot! And it wasn't just me working on these, either; every spriter on the team had their hand in making the sprites that are getting ported over here. I don't know if it's even okay to ask for their input here, but they seriously should consider doubling down on just how much work this was. The behavior of devaluing our own direction, copying other server's homework, and inevitably porting in the end is a trend that has gone from Wezzy on for at the very least the entirety of a year. That's how much I can at least back up with demonstrable evidence. I should also make it very clear that "our direction" is not a vague term, because our team has had porting rules imposed before numerous times- contributors are even completely barred from ports of raw sprite content, as far as I know. Given I'm not in the staff discord anymore, and have no ability to access these logs even if I asked, I have to leave it to someone in staff to substantiate what I'm about to say. I guess it doesn't matter who it is, as long as the contents of the interactions are made clear and visible. Throughout the duration of the 3/4ths project which endured for numerous months, I was to the point of pulling hairs trying to perfect the artstyle we would eventually have. Between myself and Atteria, I had already gone through at least half a dozen revisions of just walls; redoing, rebuilding, respriting everything along the way. There was never anything I left in silence, and when I came for feedback, I was time and time again given the call to wait by Wezzy. I'd wait, I'd wait, and weeks later, Wezzy would return with his own top-to-bottom version of what I did, except in a completely different server's style. That's how we ultimately ended up with the Eris wedge-walls and wedge-windows. They are, by all accounts, a visual replica of the Eris sprites in proportion and shading. I am unsure if the current iteration is a product of Atteria's refinements or still just Wezzy's completely, but either way, the base is all the same. This is also how we ended up with Bay-like wall mounts for APCs and air alarms and fire alarms. By the time all this shit had swung around, we were at least 4 months deep into the 3/4 project and I was already tuckered out. I can not describe how many revisions of airlocks, wall types, floors, and wall terminals I went through before ultimately having us settle on the same damn thing as before except with Eris walls and Bay terminals. It was, and still is very agitating to think about how dragged-out and problematic this project became, and I can pin virtually every problem at its core to Wezzy's handling of it. Things for 3/4ths came to a halt only when I had asked Matt in the coordination chat to put his foot down and give us decisions and ultimatums. I had, as well, eventually conceded to the sprites that Wezzy proposed, because of the exhaustion of this months-long waste of time. This problem is something that I am perfectly sure will persist as long as it goes unchecked, and the spring cleaning PR is exemplary proof of that. Additional remarks: I needed to make this complaint to highlight this behavior because this has become problematic probably dozens of times between Wezzy and others. There is obviously some form of disconnect between what people are telling Wezzy - namely, myself, and what Wezzy actually believes or ends up doing as a lead spriter. So, because of that disconnect, the only clear outcome is to make it as concise as possible on a formalized complaint. At the end of the day, I just want this porting shit to end and I don't want any more of my work, or anybody else's work, pissed away because nobody bothered to question these types of retroactive decisions. I'm sure that's not exactly on par with the premise of most staff complaints, but I've spent years dealing with this and it's a problem that I'm not alone in seeing. I think at the very least, that's worth addressing like any other complaint.

also I got permission to post this too

Byond Account : kyres1 Character Name(s) : Discord username : noodle_buster Age: 23 Timezone: UTC-6 CST When are you on Aurora?: Depends on schedule, but a very large portion of my time is observing nowadays, and sometimes very large portions are spent playing. I have a full-time schedule as of right now but I'm typically on at American highpop hours. How long have you played SS13?: Since August 2014. How long have you played on Aurora : Since around the same time in 2014. It was the first server I made a static character on. How much do you know about SS13 (Baystation build) game mechanics?: I think I'm more familiar with the gameplay of this server than most people. Do you have any experience moderating for an SS13 server?: Not really, besides private offshoots and lore. My time in lore pre-DLM was a lot of whitelist stripping, if that counts. Have you read through the criteria thread; snip - and believe that you mark off all the criteria?: Yes. Have you ever been banned, and if so, how long and why?: No Why do you play SS13?: Long-form setting building is my favorite hobby. I am the type of person who would be completely fine being a host of my own, were it possible - everything I do kind of meshes with that ideology. Why do you play on Aurora?: It is only possible to accomplish the above criteria on Aurora. As a result I've rooted my feet in with the community, found myself to love the community, and devoted obtuse amounts of time to it. The friendships and positivity keep me going. What do moderators do?: They assist players in the community with subjects of administrative nature. They reactively and sometimes proactively moderate rule breaking occurrences as they come along. What does it mean to be a moderator for our server?: Being fair and absolute is my expectation for staff who decide how the community should behave. There is a very bold line between personal interests and those that benefit the server. Separating these is something my best friends in administration have done successfully, and that's the obligation I'd hold to any other staff of this role. Why do you want to be a moderator?: I am progressively and rapidly losing interest in avenues I once contributed to the server with. This is me seeking another way to contribute as best I can, through an avenue I haven't yet pursued. What qualities do you possess that would make you a good moderator?: I've been here a long time. I don't answer these questions well - if some criteria is needed here, let me know, but I'm going to dodge it on this app. How well do you handle stress, anger, or insults?: Better than most. I do not sugarcoat, I rarely vent, and I do not lie. Others argue that my tentative nature is core to many of my problems, but I myself feel overbearing at times. Anything Else You Want to Add: I want to worm into a new team and get some new experience. That's all.

BYOND key: kyres1 Discord name/id: noodle_buster Borg / AI names : I played a lot of borgs a very long time ago, there's a list of nine individual "modules" where personalities would be assumed for each department they took on. The most noteworthy of this was ROCKY, the name of the character slot as well. I also played an AI named "Truth," who led a lot of very memorable rounds for me. Have you read the Aurora wiki page about the AI?: Yes Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: I was a synthdev for a really long time. I like robots. I haven't gotten a chance to play with the new laws, either. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? : I have never had particularly serious actions taken against me. Every single warning/note I have without exception is related to antagonists, of which there are a very high volume. The only reasons I believe I'm not punished from them is due to the sheer amount of time that has passed (these warnings/notes have accumulated over literally a decade, so very slowly) and because I've made a very surefire commitment to improving where I'm criticized. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Even so, I think antag AI is poison. I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? : Yes.

I sparsely see xeno devs obstruct anything. I actually honestly can't really pin a time where a species' lore has grappled the server in a negative way for any prolonged period. I think that a lot of this can be owed to most species just not having enough time for their faults to settle before getting ground-up reworks or retcons; the only two exceptions being synthetic and Tajaran lore. The rest have dramatically changed so much in just the last couple years alone that pinpointing flaws is difficult when everything is malleable. Yes. I think I have a history of being more stubborn than lenient, to a fault. I do not often receive good reasons for retcons. I still... don't. I really never will. Quality control and "modernizing" are excuses I get, but never elaboration as to what makes a page more or less qualified, or modern for that matter. Usually, additive retcons (see: entire faction rework/content buffs) actually unmistakably never adjust the technical quality of anything, arguably simply worsening aspects with more thorough, specific writing. So, without a good reason, and with legitimate intent to deconstruct or remove what's already there... why would I approve it? Contrarily, if it has a good reason, who ever opposes it? The missing link here tends to be a good reason, and almost 100% of our retcons - especially factional and additive rewrites, have boiled down to ultimately writer preference. Well, depending on who you ask, some might say "no, we can make this infinitely." I might get shit for it but, just like retcons, I never get a good reason for just piling on content. It's another thing that is just contradictory to development; you're actively making things harder to consume, harder to remember, harder to digest and even harder to avoid breaking the rules of. It plays into an idea that a writer is writing whatever they want with disregard to the player. Therefore, raw content sucks. However, not all content is just reasonless and raw fluff. You can very easily differentiate the two. Ask yourself; does it affect the game and/or how people roleplay? If yes, you're already a step ahead of most of it. Let's just hope it's a positive impact - though, most writers are quickly able to tell what they see as positive or negative perceptions of their lore. Hint : the playerbase and community's perception of lore is the correct one, not any single writer's. It's up to the writer to align with that. As for events, yes. I can't even begin to fathom the amount of time wasted curbing the idea that lore writers can't just run their own events. They can. Join a round. Ahelp. Tell them to spawn something. You're done, get playing. There's obviously nuance to this, but the simple ability to contribute for a writer is as easy and fun as playing the game. Why people continue to express such stress and opposition towards these ideas eludes me, but my previous post replying to Fluffyghost covers this mistake and how I feel it should be fixed. The biggest project currently being undergone on my front for new players is either the away site mapping guide (which is basically done), or the discord alteration proposal (which isn't public, but you're aware of it, I think). These were both things I intended to tackle for new contributors and new players to enrich the experience immediately, but I've gone and done both of those before having applied. That leaves only stuff I had as stretch goals remaining. Earlier in the thread I proposed an alternative wiki system; using in-game integration, having Github wikis accessible ingame is far more functional, easier to update, easier to keep track of, and more. Working on the technical aspect of the team's organization is necessitated for any of that to work, so before I can get ambitious like that, I need to mend what we've got first. Not much that wasn't highlighted extensively in the OP. It's cursed, no pun intended. I never saw anybody do anything with these and feel they might be a doomed concept as a result. I wager an idea like antag lore could work, but definitely not in the way we used to perceive it. Secret lore, on the other hand, should not exist within the team - the only barrier of knowledge of any lore should be between staff, and players in my opinion. Faction? The Republic. It's the most honest image of what our lore stands for, for the most part. Call me boring, but it's our setting's heart for a reason, and virtually every positive memory about this server still lingers with me in this faction. Corp? Hephaestus. I like robots. I like monolithic machines. It goes hand in hand. Planet/culture? Konyang. Konyang is the perfect planet. I can gush about it for hours.

The most consistent immediate mistake that basically everyone stumbles into is VIP events. Some way or some manner of them exists in every loredev's history, even mine. (That's how I learned! Thanks, Purpose events.) VIP events are basically "important person/people board to talk about important things." They're uninvolved, unintuitive, bore the hell out of the crew, and waste an extended vote to many. In fact, many times, these can literally just be ran on secret without announcement and work just fine. This ends up leaving people disinterested and objecting future events of the same alignment/faction/species/whatever. Another big one is floundering your first event, or events, and going, "This is too damn hard, I give up!" Everyone does it. Like, everyone. There are cases where some simply do not run events after running one, for years-long tenures. The fear is reasonable. Events are a spotlight role- they put the host, the director, volunteers and the lore in the spotlight. Fuck up, and it's stressful to deal with the consequences. What I've always done to reassure people in the end with these is reminding them that, really, if things go so horribly terribly wrong, it's them - and the rest of staff - who have the "retcon" button. While I obviously hate retcons and everything they stand for, I will always stand by the fact that loredevs should never stress with events because of them. Things never go too bad. But, it's a possibility, and in that fringe case where nobody wins and everything's unfun, you should not have to take the fall - nobody should. Stressing over events is unfounded because of it. You can learn a lot from KOTW's event week. In this time, everything was pseudo-canon, or "optionally canon." It was a week of unpredictable randomized events which permeated the Aurora, and anybody who was onboard was trapped until the week elapsed. Any death in the week could be retconned without fuss. And death was plentiful! People were ecstatic of the ability to optionally canonize this series of absolutely wild events, because the stressful aspect was temporarily lifted. This is something lore developers should take control of from the start - their interpretation of the canon which reflects on characters is as malleable as anyone else's. Yet, few do. Many believe the simplest mistakes and tiniest missteps are cause for alarm and they get so stressed they just avoid it altogether. Why stress? You're here to enjoy it like everyone else. As long as you're not ruining fun on purpose, what is there to worry for? A third, more gloomy mistake is losing direction immediately upon getting the role. I've personally had problems settling into roles when I first start them plenty of times. Others end up in the same rut, but they walk themselves in circles - never truly gripping a passion, never truly bursting out to enjoy their role to the fullest. When people enjoy their role as a writer, developer, administrator, CCIA, whatever - they'll naturally try to make things fun for everyone else. The name of the game is fun, and amidst the stress and lonesomeness one might face as a full writer, it's very easy to lose sight of that. Boring as it might sound, the fix is to literally just keep pursuing your interest. You cling to what makes you enjoy the role. If it doesn't harm, if it's not self-serving, and if it's contributing to the server, these meet the criteria for something you can do indefinitely. For this, I eventually found spriting to be my niche in off-time. We're never too full on sprites and whatnot, so, duh. Before spriting was my big go-to, I found most of my passion to be rooted in playing dungeon master - giving compelling stories, connected narratives, and attaching players to some grander scheme that they would uncover as they go along. With our lore as a springboard, it made for some of the most memorable and exciting stories I have literally ever had the pleasure of seeing. The gratification of being the storyteller just absolutely enthralled me. In a sense, I'm still hooked to that feeling, and yes, if I were just offered it for free, I would absolutely take an event host role. For anyone who finds themselves lost (usually first entering the team), these sorts of retellings of time on the team will seem sparse and minimal. You're not incentivized to find your niche because, well, nobody's going to make you interested for you. That's your issue. To many, they never find their passion, though it might just take a little push to really unlock it. Cheerleaders are few and far between. Don't give up, find your fun, and own it. That's the solution to the third mistake. Edit : I added the green text.

Because this is a matter that has lasted a very very long time between a very very large multitude of people. I've actually brought every single issue up numerous times in staff mediums, previous applications, forum posts, etcetera. This is presuming I've sat on this like it's some sort of hidden agenda or secret timebomb to drop overtly on an unsuspecting team. It's not. I was literally facing these issues years ago, trying to fix them as I said. They persist to this day demonstrably even with multiple years of changed hands having been in control. Once again, the dwelling on whether I should've said it or not is becoming the point of contention. It makes it seem like these are damning aspects that I've brought to attention like some sort of complaint. Which, is literally the opposite - I'm offering to take the position which can assume a stance to fix these issues. I'm volunteering myself to tackle the problem. These are just the problems I'm particularly angled against. What I meant to say by saying I've privately and publicly relayed these things, is that I have complained and I retain the ability to complain. These aren't new ideas. They're nowheres near new. They've existed since my tenures began, and some time before, admittedly with less extreme consequences. This application in of itself is myself offering to remedy my own complaints, with my own work and effort, because I see - and have substantiated - that these complaints were valid and maintain their validity to this day. There's still no valid opposing argument tackling the subject matter, and likely never will be, seeing as it's been years that these have been discussed.

You're overlooking some key words here. I'm criticizing the implication of new blood leading our team. This is a head staff position. This is a small subset of positions which, by their very definition, call for people with experience. You're literally dodging every possible method of just telling me why it's a good idea in the first place, only to claim I'm trying to gatekeep one of the most important roles our staff team has in the first place. Of course I want experienced people in the position. I gave reasons as to why. Why do you want new people in it? Are you going to give me a reason? Thanks. This is a great thing to hear from... another applicant, of all people. I'm not sure why this is even allowed, but I had to put up with scrutiny from other applicants with the person who got the position, so I'm guessing this is something to look forward to now. I guess this is another one of those blatant in-your-face remarks that I'm supposed to brush over and disregard? How about you be a little less passive aggressive in general? Is that too forward? The rest of @La Villa Strangiato's reply here is accusatory. So, for sake of total clarity, like I've had to do a number of times before, let me actually tell the reader - and the reviewer of this application - what occurred to paint such a conceited image of me in this reply. So. That's the entire exchange, through and through. I was candid with you and pinged you in public. Why? Well, you... posted it publicly? Do you not want... public feedback? Why do I need to DM you the most basic request explaining your intentions? You've been in this community long enough and claim to be invested enough in its lore to know that discourse into additions is not only frequent, but almost certainly boils down to the most basic question. "Why is it needed?" "What does it provide?" It doesn't matter if it's code, sprites, writing, events, whole ass arcs, anything we can measure as contribution ultimately has a reason behind it. So, when you are confronted on the application format to include a reason, what possibly makes you think you aren't at least going to get scrutiny by just refusing to answer? What the hell am I doing justifying all the stuff I'm adding if you don't have to? Was I condescending? Well, I don't think so, but I was definitely stating the obvious, and I definitely felt taken aback by the disregard you have for the addition you sought to implement. Was I cryptic? No. My words are pretty clear. I'm straight with the things I say for a reason. Was I wrong for pinging you in public? Absolutely not. That sounds like a problem you should take to the administrators if you think someone has a bad attitude with you in a public channel, so much so to discomfort you enough to make a fuss about it later. On their application... for the position you're also trying to apply to. That sure is a convenient time to bring it up. You had a lot of opportunities to make this seem rude, discomforting, embarrassing, whatever else in the 2 1/2 weeks that have elapsed since. Why bring it up now, even assuming the rest of what I said is to be disregarded? I didn't say I did? You're ignoring the "such as" part. This is referencing all species slots. All are subject to closure depending on urgency and importance. Moreover, don't pretend we don't have an obvious chain of influence established by the presence, contribution, and activity of certain teams as opposed to others. It is completely disregarding the efforts of people who have committed immense amounts of time to their work to simply say that they are seen with complete ambivalence in comparison to any other team. Some people pull more weight than others. There is nothing to gain from pretending otherwise. Huh? Wait, why am I a green name then? Damn, these deadlines sure suck! I hope I don't get a deadline for the next two-hundred hour project I work on. Again. That's sarcasm. It's sarcasm because this is the worst thing you could say. Let me explain why. First of all, you imply there is existing obligation. As it stands, and as it has been for time immemorial, there is none to be seen here. The position is unvetted, unmonitored, largely unsupervised (even during stricter tenures), and holds total power over the direction it is entitled to. That's the funny part. There isn't a catch for being a lore developer. There never was. Every other staff team functions just fine with obligations out the ass. CCIA is sitting here crunching the most mind-numbing IRs weekly, administrators are taking hundreds of tickets a day oftentimes, moderators are doing the same with literally no fun things to make up for it, wikimaints are a thankless role, and don't even get me started with my own department in development! We're practically churning hundreds of hours-long projects as a matter of routine at this point. All the while, we're still subject to the whim, will and request of the people who - get this - don't have any of that weight. Now, I don't blame you for not knowing that. You've never been lore. How would you possibly know? The most you'll receive is the complaining and trickle-down from a lore developer. But the fact of the matter is that nobody is holding a gun to anybody's head. Nobody is working on an expectation here that they themselves did not set. The solemn, singular exception to this was deadlines I set over the course of literal months in KOTW, and that was a single case. It was originally intended to work with the NBT - a project so singularly large that it dwarfs every other accomplishment this server has achieved once over. This all tells me that you have a preconceived notion that : 1. The other staff teams aren't persistently, constantly, and proactively working literally overtime to do their respective parts 2. Lore, as our largest department by strides, can not shoulder the most fundamental of obligations, such as commitment to the server - content with effects, events, and other specifics noted above 3. Lore is already busting their ass with wide-sweeping coordinated projects. None of this is true. If the second is true, then you must justify why we have them. At that point, don't ask me! Ask the person who keeps the department around. That would be, looping back again, the literal host of the server. I don't think you should get it either. I would hate to be denied off of precedent of Trio's misconceptions as my previous competitor - but simply being chosen won't exactly make your statements right. It also won't make you more right than the last dozen people who chose vitriol, exaggeration and victimizing to decry others. It sure happens a lot. I can only hope you wisen up to the funny game of social politics you're partaking in here. Well, I know you well enough to know you don't mean malice by saying this. So I'll just skip to explaining why you're misinterpreting this, and hopefully clear it up. First part : I approved and reviewed and partially wrote the lore team regulations created by Mofo, back when it was still called the "Lore Bible." I still have the document. I personally saw the removal of at least four inactive members, quality-controlled as much as I could, and gave the ultimatum that ended total ground-up Dominia reworks in 2019-2020, I forget when. To say I haven't tried my best to hit this issue in its formative years is misinformed at best. This is also disregarding any committed effort I had as synthetic developer to quality control its playerbase. I still, to this day, have stripped more whitelists than any singular person on the team, as far as I'm aware. If that's not trying to "fix things," what is? Second part : You can ask basically any non-Unathi, non-Skrell and non-Vaurca developer. I am up their DMs like nobody's business. My "bringing this up" is a matter of personal investment and interest that I not only make privately available to lore developers constantly, but I also try to recover and steer topics in their favor as much I can. The most egregious examples tend to be the most verbosely opposed to every application I've put forth, often citing these disagreements as their reason for opposition. Only some of them actually listen to the input given. However, it shouldn't matter if they do or don't. It also shouldn't matter when I even brought this up, or if I ever did. The point is that these are apparent now, and people either disregard them out of blissful ignorance to the topics, or are themselves perpetuating it. Finally : I wholeheartedly believe that whatever mistakes I've made are imperative for any next-occupant of the position to make. They will make these mistakes because there is no other way for them to learn otherwise. They will break core tenants of the server, simply because they hadn't the foresight or understanding to recognize when or why it was bad. It's not simply "their fault," but this is the biggest reason I find my experience to be valuable. This also doesn't inherently make any other applicant a bad choice, mind you. It's simply a matter of fact. If you're interested, I can give you a non-exhaustive list of some of the essential mistakes I made that I see every loredev (and have seen every loremaster, for that matter) make, and continue to see to this day. In the interest of still keeping this reply brief enough to read, I'll let that be optional, though.

This application aims to be far more verbal with things willingly left out of the previous. I implore the reader to read the whole post. Some stuff copypasted from but answers to Trio's questions will be different, duh. Ckey/BYOND Username: kyres1 Position Being Applied For: Deputy loremaster Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Yes, I helped write it. apparently this wasn't on my last application. Past Experiences/Knowledge: A very long tenure as deputy loremaster, synthdev, synth deputy, and spriter. I've been staff consistently since 2017. Examples of Past Work: Hard to estimate what would be relevant here. For the position, I would say my biggest reference would be coordinating/hosting KING OF THE WORLD start to finish, being responsible for proposing the current setting (NBT), and solidifying a lot of very important themes in our setting. I also restructured a lot of the new player experience by changing the main pages for the wiki and writing a lot of the starting guides, as well as the assets for them ground-up. Trio's questions below: 1) Criticism of the current state of lore 2) What do you believe you can bring to the team as Deputy Loremaster 3) A brief note (such as a roadmap with additional descriptions) identifying the course and creative direction that you'd hopefully like to pursue 4) Your thoughts on me as a loremaster, and how best you think you can assist me Notes below : Comments on the "New Blood" argument : Additional words :

First and foremost, the response prior to this complaint was to come swinging at me in a DM over the trite circumstance. After you prompted a response and demeaned me, you blocked me. I do not appreciate the immediate hostility and the fucking insulting attitude you directed at me. After this reply, I have no interest in speaking to you again. In response to the substance of the complaint, I don't know what started the original confrontation. I had nothing to do with it, as at the time I was trying to get a pair of gloves and a paint sprayer for the mech in a different department. By the time I regrouped with the team, I never saw the miner that was supposedly murdered. The ENTIRE context of our confrontation is not mentioned, only that I am powergaming. Let me cover precisely the events that occurred, from my memory alone. In terms of powergaming, this boils down to a critique of my usage of smoke and thermals. For why, I literally can not imagine, you say this in the very same round you pursued me with a looted glaive and thermals of your own. There were obviously "counterplays" (such as not walking into the smoke) and in the end your character still survived. What makes it okay to insist I'm powergaming when ultimately, I used smoke grenades as intended? You mean I can't use thermals to look through opaque things? Why do I even have them? Should I just not fight back? This sure is getting to sound oppressively unfun even being forced to justify it to you.

For absolute certain clearness, I made this complaint because of the vacuum rushing. I don't think anything else of complaint substance happened the entire round. This isn't a criticism of how the raiders were treated or the validity of the response to their actions; to me, both of these things were rationally handled in-round. The core issue I saw was the suicidal attacking mentioned in the OP. So, I don't know if that's relevant to the rest of the posters. If there were a way to have the ahelp handled in round it would've been preferable but, as I said in the OP, shit happens.

BYOND Key: kyres1 Game ID: cpA-apJV Player Byond Key/Character name: evandorf/Suvek Tokash Staff involved: None. Reason for complaint: The round was coming to a close. Raiders were given the ultimatum to leave their imprisoned friend by Suvek Tokash (HOS). Afterwards, they refused, and we escalated into a standoff in the brig. In the midst of the standoff, another raider came from EVA and blew out the external window with plastic explosives. The entire area was breached, visibly so - most of the engagement took place in direct eyesight of the hole to space, all while security was gasping for air. During this, multiple attempts were made to coerce security to not keep charging in a losing battle, such as cleaner grenade slipping them, point blanking Tokash in the head with a musket after flashbang stunning them, and so on. However, pretty quickly afterwards, while the actual escape attempt was finishing, Tokash had wandered back into the depressurized area with a Dominian assault rifle and an SMG in either hand. With a broken skull and standing in vacuum very willingly at this point, they gunned me down. It kind of sucked. I think it's obviously disregarding the excruciating pain of being shot, flashbanged multiple times, unarmored, in the skull, and then willingly doing battle in vacuum with no spacesuit. Not to mention, this is going to suicidal lengths to ensure the deaths of opponents, not just as security but also command. Other raiders expressed confusion about it all. I couldn't tell if they were actually involved with Tokash' actions or not, nor am I sure if they even have a forum account, so I've left them out of mentioning here. Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? : Yes. No admins were online to take it, and the round ended 20 minutes or so after the ticket was sent out with no response. The ahelp; Approximate Date/Time: 10pm-12am CST, specifically near the 02:40-02-55 round duration

Another spriter already weighed in on the PRs available and I believe has given a pretty decisive ruling. I think the start and finish of that problem then becomes taking it to the supervising head of staff. You can talk to the maintainers through pinging them here or DM/ping them on discord for a speedier response. If the maintainers still don't have a decision you like, you can go to the host, but at that point it's "I'm complaining" levels and no longer "I disagree" simply. While it sounds dismissive, like I said, the reason for Wezzy's response was given. To argue the reason is a different story than this, but this is whole thread is under the assumption that there's a divided outlook. Suffice to say, if the team doesn't agree with Wezzy's response, the team is free to say so. I, however, don't, and this is basically me telling you that nobody else has either. The only people who can definitively overrule it are, again, the people above us. As for standards other sprites don't meet, I can ramble on this for a good while. As of present we are 5-6 months into an overhaul slated originally to take a couple weeks from a one-man effort; I've sunk several hundred hours into resprites, revisions, feedback, revisions, and more resprites of things that mostly won't even make it into the game, and been in near-daily discourse for the duration of those months about the state of those sprites. Suffice to say, that's a long ass time, and an absolute assload of commitment. To that end, there are a lot of things we can and will overlook, incidentally or purposely, in the ultimate goal of not going insane amidst all this. To say "well, other things don't stack up to the standard" is to say there is a disregard for the decision given almost solely because a decision hasn't been made before. Yet again, it's slippery slope stuff. I especially don't plan to change anything mentioned by me with that in mind. Part of not contesting or questioning the decision not only lay in the fact that I agree with it, but also because shit like simple uniforms generating days of discourse is not something to look forward to. Again, there's way bigger projects and overarching goals under our wing than this, so it stands to reason that once we make the decision, it really shouldn't explode into tangents between dozens of people over weeks. While I don't disagree that community discussion is a key to a healthy contribution environment, I have to admit that the standard suggestion or feedback thread is getting to be so draining to confront that it's less trouble to just not contribute or develop in the first place for most. I sorely hope that this energy to contribute is spent on better or more needed things in the future.

Is it a miscommunication? Not to sound upset, but as far as I'm aware, this is just a case of spriters saying "no" and giving ultimatums that people disagree with. My response to this entire thread is just responding to this. Why is there a uniform if it's not uniform? At that point, use the loadout to make what you want. Add highlight accessories and tags adjacent to whatever trillion-or-so origins/alignments/organizations/employers there may be to signify what you want while you wear what you want. It's long gotten to the point where these are things that are just getting added "just because." We no longer enforce uniform regulations. Heads of staff do not care as long as you don't look like a clown. These are takeaways that demonstrate we should not add new uniforms - we've gotten what we need. If there's a reason written in plain english as to why every single subfaction-of-a-subfaction needs a uniquely sprited uniform here, let me know, but the discourse about this whole topic is telling me that I, as a spriter, do not want it. Mind you, these are whole ass uniforms with intentionally downscaled variation from one another meant to be worn as representative work attire for their faction. This errs on needing to represent those factions from the perspective of our workplace (we don't), and further errs on a downwards spiral where we progressively drift further and further away from an actual uniform theme among them. To finish that thought, if it looks the same or barely different from what we have, that's yet another question as to why we're making unique icons/paths for it.

This is a thread that is basically trying to paint a very big and obvious problem to the community that only players can really solve for themselves. This problem is character turnover. Character turnover, in the ways I've used it, is exactly what it sounds like; you make a new character and pave over, or just abandon the previous. Why is this a problem? Well, don't forget where we are. This is a server where canon is treasured and treated seriously above most anything else. Actually, we kind of suck if we disregard core things that arise from canon. Those include character development, player participation at length, and investment you can achieve by being present in average day-to-day rounds. All of those things suddenly cease to exist the moment you step into making a new character. After all, you're starting over from the very beginning! How do you fix this? Play your characters. Feel more comfortable about committing to characters. Once you find a niche you enjoy, and continue to enjoy, why step out of it? It takes time and it's difficult to establish connections with other characters. But, for a lot of new players, this is where connecting with the community and making friends starts. It's important to realize that maintaining this connection is valuable OOCly too. Does this mean you shouldn't make new characters? No, but if you're enjoying something and getting invested, what's making you stop? Personally, to me, when I see an entire manifest of people I don't recognize, I'm dissuaded from joining. This happens frequently, and has been for a while now. So that's the gist of this post. I hope it pushes whoever reads it to hunkering down and getting some good development.

Before this reaches too many posts and too many words to reasonably care about for this topic, I should make a few things clear about the essence of this PR ; 1. A rework is not slated to happen nor ever going to happen if you want to look back in time and see how no reworks have ever happened. 2. Additions and tweaks to the gamemode are extremely few and far between. 3. The contentious nature of the game mode makes contributions towards it unappealing and often detrimental to the author. 4. The gamemode fundamentally curbs essential rules and toes many lines of uncertainty between what is OOCly acceptable for player behavior, and not, as defined by our rules. 5. The gamemode has a plethora of often unseen features that are vastly overshadowed by the utter necessity of taking a "meta kit" to avoid total unavoidable shutdown, therein railroading the gamemode into only one of two possibilities ; kill or get cuffed. The above points, with all conjecture as to the quality of antagonist players, the quality of development, or the quality of the mechanics aside, are all factual as far as I can tell. So, with those really really simple bulletpoints presented like that, it is impossible to rationally support this gamemode remaining in its current state. Ta-da. The PR was made. Kill it.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/17070 Requested here; Don't know what to say as OP. It sucks. Don't like it. Trying to see it less. That's the logic, basically.

A quick (two day) double take and a discussion with a friend had me thinking on some things. Mostly about the efficacy of attempting sorts of large, sweeping reforms; most of which weren't entirely referred to in the thread, as opposed to a myriad of other responsibilities the role might have. Some thought into that had me on internal tangents about what I'd miss out on if I simply shied away from work that wasn't even mandatory for my purview. TL;DR, I figured my previous post of kind of ignores the fact that there's still an immense amount to do besides team-wide reforms. Moreover, the fact that, seeing as the team even exists, obviously we aren't in absolute instantaneous need of these reforms... Obviously, if this workload was as monolithic as it sounded still at first impressions, I'd still be having second thoughts as the message would lead you to believe. But this realization of workload is something of a double-take on that, for the better, I believe. So, I pinged @Caelphon and asked to re-open the application. I'll have @Flpfs and @Triogenix's questions sorted today.

I think that, with my fundamental disagreement of the intrinsic traits of lore and how it's come to operate in recent times, me stepping into this position again would make for a workload I simply wouldn't be able to handle. In a lot of cases I'd happily tackle difficult tasks, but undergoing team-wide reforms is a different story; one that chips away at reputation and exhausts one very quickly. That level of exhaustion is something I can pass up on for a little longer. I'll retract this application and look at openings in the future.

"Event arcs" should be synonymous with "arcs." The two should not be separated in the slightest. The idea that running events to make things relevant is "forcing players to engage" kind of contradicts what you (lore development) are here for. This is the closest thing to an obligation that our largest staff department has. This entire reply just doesn't make sense because of that. I think the second these things become an analog to real-life ideologies (SRF/ATLAS and fascism) they become incredibly boring. It's 442 years in the future. Our community historically does not play well with the subject of "anything-supremacist" characters. In any other scenario, yes, having an antagonistic faction to oppose is a necessity in my opinion. Without it, things become boringly peaceful.

Things historically stay in their own lanes. I've been in development just as long as I've been lore, and very rarely have I seen the two cross paths negatively. In my experience, the expectations between team members vary depending on what topic is being addressed, and there is very little "leeway" where a developer can leverage a lore change, or a lore writer can leverage a development change. Regardless of the intent of either, one person has to end up working at the end of the day, and whoever puts that foot forward tends to be the one who gets sway on things. This has ups and downs. The most obvious up-side is that people who contribute nothing and generate nothing but ideas tend to get nothing done, sit on positions, and give in to turnover. The downside is that the expectations of either team can be so unclear at times that even those who do contribute will have difficulty doing things that line up with their lane. A great example is confusion amidst projects between lore and development. There is plentiful cases of lore misunderstanding or plainly misrepresenting the workload a project needs to happen. I myself, for a while, was a culprit of this. After all, an overwhelming majority of our writers have never coded, sprited, mapped, moderated, or even hosted events as developer, much less admin. Regardless, I think this balance is vital. I do not think people should be endowed with authority and power to be staff with nothing to actually contribute, in any echelon of the team. Lore is no exception, nor development. At the end of the day, this all rests on what a volunteer can offer, lore or otherwise; if someone signs up with the expectation to do nothing, they ought not be surprised when nothing comes back in return. In terms of the examples you proposed, I'll cover the details of both and what I view them as. For Skrell Sol common; a decision was made not by maintainers, but by head developers (who supercede the entirety of staff) regarding this. Whether it's accepted or not rests on if it can meet their expectations. Why? Because they made the decision. You can disagree with it, be annoyed, or support it, or be happy. It doesn't really matter. What was needed was a decision, and so they decided their conditions a very long time ago. Decisions are key for head staff to make in any position because this is ultimately an open-source project. If anybody can contribute, anybody can argue. If anybody can argue, you'll hear arguing. Endlessly. Don't believe me? Use the suggestion forums as reference and locate threads with more than 5 pages. You'll quickly see that, while I love this community, I can not deny that feeding contentious topics to unprepared feedback avenues will generate nothing but talking loops and arguing. As for removing special glove types, I don't recall this being an issue. I also don't recall lore ever over-turning a maintainer decision. In terms of a "hierarchy," our staff has a clear focus on development/maintainers maintaining sway over game play. Without extraordinary circumstances I can't foresee any decision a maintainer could make be rejected by lore. That's not only swinging high, but that's also swinging well out of one's lane. No. If one team does not want to inhabit the same working area as the other, there is nothing I can do in this position even as an idea without seeming mean. There is also, like all of what I said above, the case of teams just not sharing the same specialties whatsoever. There is a vastly different requirement between a green-name developer, a moderator and a lore writer, and all of them branch into wildly different avenues both as a hobby and a position. There is also the case of how extremely wide and encompassing our lore is, and a very very huge majority of the typical discussion between the writers is so distant from most other team's cares that they may as well not happen at all. Do I think everyone should work together seamlessly? Yes, but that is a fairy tale ideal. It's not possible with a team as humongous as ours. To the best of my knowledge, the phoron scarcity did not ever change. Phoron is still stifled and the SCC still exists. It seems pretty important. I also acknowledged that among our heaviest in-game questions are still unanswered; the price of phoron, how to estimate it, who has it, where it's stored, etc... none of it is detailed whatsoever outside of sparing details, as if the entire subject has been consistently beaten around but never directly addressed. It's hardly in my interest to throw down themes that were built if barely a year or so ago for the sake of freshness. There is a very, very plentiful amount of content, and no amount of adding more will make the game more fun. To pile on what we have is working backwards to that goal. The planet freeze was first proposed in the middle (and just before) KOTW. It's been years. Some sinking feeling I have suspects that, if these lore bases are taking multiple years to just "update," things are either; A. so disproportionately unorganized/huge already that curating and quality-controlling them is pointless (nightmare scenario, in simple words) or B. already being disregarded in favor of compounding more origins into the universe. There's no real argument as to it being anything but these two things. And, which one it is doesn't matter; both are really bad! We're reaching a very obviously-foreseen point where things that are simply older than a set duration are slated to be replaced or overwritten for the sake of existing and being old thoughts. It's as if the plan is to simply re-write the whole lore, but with new names on it this time, to no effect. There are plenty of community members that have been here for longer than two years. The vast majority of regulars have been. Even disregarding that, why would we continue to pave over or ignore the foundations that got us here? Shouldn't we build into what's given, instead of adding more, more more? That is way more gratifying and more importantly enjoyable for players to jump into.

Could you explain what exactly is beneficial by considering "new blood" a positive trait for head staff? Also, could you explain what I plan to "scale back?" Most, if not all of the things on this application require investment, effort and tangible progress from more than just me to pull off. This also all rides on the idea that I want to see the team work together more. Is that not scaling up from what we presently have?

I offered to map it so I am a fan of the idea, yeah. I'm a fan of practically any event, especially one of this sort. Though I don't think this needs to be a lore team thing at all. Nothing can (or should) stop an admin from hosting whatever event they want/how they want for this sort of stuff.