MattAtlas

It is a question I could definitely have worded better, I agree (should probably have been 'what is the impact of the phoron scarcity on your character?' or something) though I doubt the results would have been different really. I think maybe there would have been one or two people voting 5, and the rest sitting at a square 1 or 2.

Introduction Hi, everyone! The results for the surveys are in. As was explained in the survey itself, keep in mind that these results are only indicative. Just because the majority of people said "we want a corporate setting" does not necessarily mean that the next setting will be a corporate one. These survey results underwent a cleaning process where anonymous surveys or surveys with blank/bogus names were removed (9 over 148 responses). Survey results will have the question written in plaintext over it so that you can search for it, and I'll add some of my own thoughts as well. The total surveys submitted post-cleaning are 139. Is Aurora stagnating currently? This question is fairly self-explainatory. A good amount of the playerbase seems to think that Aurora is indeed stagnating - and part of the reason behind the question being there is that I had a feeling this was the case. There are a lot of factors that could go into this - the lack of gameplay development, or the lack of lore direction - those are questions that are intertwined inextricably, in my opinion. The two go hand in hand; a lack of gameplay developmeng is also caused by a lack of lore direction, and vice versa. A significant amount of the playerbase is also indifferent, which means that the problem currently isn't as bad as the graphic might make it seem. However, it does show that this is an increasing trend, and that Aurora's stagnation, as it is, is only destined to grow. In the event of a setting change, what kind of setting would you like to see? As you can see, this question had some rather... eclectic answers. I think I was wrong in how I put this question into the survey - there probably shouldn't have been an "other" answer. In any case, most of those "other" answers are essentially divided between corporate/colony, or mixes between different answers that I won't get into too much. This question doesn't just serve as a "what would you do in your ideal world?" question, but also as an indicator of what our playerbase is interested in, and where they want to see change happen. A lot of people still seem to like the idea of a corporate setting. The important part is that on a global level, about 70% of the server would like to see a different kind of setting, although what everyone wants there is far more divided. This question is particularly interesting to me because it represents the kind of playerbase we have. We have a pretty good core of people interested in corporate roleplay, but also a lot of people that would like something that leans more to a freelancer outlook. Some people prefer a more static colony setting, while an even smaller amount prefer a military setting. If you have not voted for a mercenary/freelancer setting as your favourite, how much do you like the idea of such a setting? This one is rather self-explainatory. It seems that the freelancer setting is still quite popular even among people that didn't exactly vote for it. I think there was an error with how I set up the question here by making it mandatory, so that should be accounted for - though keep in mind that the results for "Freelancer" in the previous questions were only 36. Assuming those people all voted 5, that still makes the answers from 3 to 4 a supermajority. What do you believe Aurora is lacking the most? There is probably no surprise here for anyone. Gameplay has been Aurora's sorest spot for a very, very long time. I could write a thesis on what happened to the gameplay part of this server over the years, but the short answer is that an overreliance on antagonists for the round structure to be fun creates stagnant gameplay loops in the department themselves, which are modelled to only be relevant insofar as there is an antagonist. There are departments like Science that suffered a progressive gutting in favour of other roles, like Roboticist. More on this later. Either way, the lack of gameplay in Aurora is a massive problem. In the event that a timeskip is necessary for a setting change (with 2028 as the minimum target time), what would your opinion on that be? This is probably one of the most surprising answers. A supermajority of the playerbase is actually fine with a timeskip, with the number decreasing as you go up in years - but even a 15 year timeskip would see 75% of the server agreeing with it. Analysing this result, we can take this as a pretty good indicator that something is fundamentally not working in our current setting. If it were rock solid, I doubt anyone would be fine with a timeskip at all. I'll take this opportunity to answer some things I saw brought up in the Discord over this question - any timeskip would be an in-universe development with a lore arc tied to it, and we would stay in the same overarching universe we are in right now. Things wouldn't be disconnected. What is your opinion on the current state of Aurora and its setting? This is an interestingly polarizing question, where about 35% of the server thinks there needs to be a big change, and 65% thinks the current setting is fine. On a surface reading, that means to me that there is some sort of fundamental issue with how the Horizon was brought about and its development over the years, but it is not fundamentally broken. Based off of this, you could think the NBT was mostly a success. What is your opinion on Science being removed and integrated as parts of other departments such as Engineering or Operations? This is an interestingly polarizing question: a lot of people have strong opinions on Science, which I find is rather odd for a department that finds itself having no players most of the time. I think this is due to Science being an attractive idea in theory - most of the players would like to see Science flourish - but the reason behind this question is that I wanted to see what people's position on the department is. It's no surprise that it's a department that's been on the soft chopping block for a long time, both because its features have been siphoned off over time and also because of a lack of development. Its components being pulled out and given to other departments is a potential solution because it would refresh the idea of Science. You would be able to add new mechanics and items without having to plaster a veener of "research" / "new thing that is discovered" over it, which believe it or not, is typically a massive hurdle. Integrating it into Engineering or Operations, in my mind, is a bigger incentive to put Science squarely into that hole of "department/job that upgrades things", but that is a discussion for another day. Either way, I'll definitely take account of the results here. Is the idea of increased friction between corporate and mercenary characters enticing to you? No real surprise here. This is an alluring proposition for a lot of players. I think in general this does reflect a lack of suspiciousness between the factions on the ship, and some discontent with that. "Hostility" isn't exactly the right word, but a little bit of surface level conflict between the characters, some distrust, things like that. Do you believe that the Aurora universe (intended as Lore in its globality) is too static at the moment? Here's some good homework - try to figure out what this means! These answers are really polarizing to an interesting degree. There's an almost even split between basically all the factions, with "maybe" winning out in pure numbers, though there could be a study on its own on what exactly people meant here - maybe that's material for another survey. I think there's some discontent at the base here, though if I were to wager a guess I'd probably point my fingers at a lot of universe events happening far away from our reach. One of the biggest problems with the Horizon, in my opinion, is that when bad things happen it's often unjustified for a flagship to go there. We would fall into arguments like "but why would the most expensive prized ship ever be in [dangerous location]?" and the answer would require either some substantial suspension of disbelief (like in the Konyang events) or a huge sanitization of what the Horizon can actually do in these events - like it or not, conflict and danger are at the base of most literature for a reason. Does the idea of increased friction between player characters caused by interstellar events such as war appeal to you? Well, there's one of our answers. I think this one explains itself. People definitely want more friction between characters, and this ties back into that question from earlier about mercenary and corporate infighting. That kind of thing is good and something we definitely need to develop in the future. In any setting change, do you believe that the ship/station/etc. should be independent and largely not beholden to any particular entity? I think my takeaway from this particular answer is that there's a balance to be struck. A lot of people like playing with constraints on their characters, and I'm one of them, personally. I would have voted "no" here, but we should keep in mind that this question is rather simplistic and a surface level view of what "Independence" might represent. You can be reasonably independent while still being beholden to a particular entity. It's a matter for further discussion some other day, but I believe whatever new setting we have should try to strike a good balance between "independence" and "obligation". We should have a lot more narrative freedom in where we can go and what we can do. Ideally, we shouldn't have to suspend disbelief on why we're doing X thing for a lore arc, and we shouldn't have to limit ourselves to certain kinds of events or tasks for our ship. In general, how much does the theme of "a universe recovering from a large war" appeal to you? This is also a rather surprising answer, and I think this all makes sense if you compare it with the overwhelming support for increased friction between characters - it's a no brainer as to how such a setting would contribute to conflict between characters. A good majority definitely sees good opportunity in this kind of setting. If you could pick one department/gameplay area to receive particular focus in NBT2, which one would it be? This is another... pretty eclectic graph. Again, I really should not have added an "other" section - the answers there are mostly things like "rip off cyberpunk", "do most departments at once", "no particular opinion", "science", or derivatives of exploration. Either way, there's MASSIVE support for more exploration content - which I honestly didn't expect to see! Keep in mind that these kinds of questions often fall into pretty big tribalism. It takes a lot for someone to vote against their own department, and I can count about three departments starved for gameplay on Aurora. Exploration itself isn't really even a department (maybe you could argue it for some of Command), so the people voting for it are voting against their own department, which takes a lot. It means that exploration is definitely something we should focus on more, and people like that sort of content a lot. It has potential future as the center of a setting, if you ask me. Science is a close second - not a surprise, seeing the answers on the Science question from below. Operations is also a major winner. Behind that, Service, then Medical, and then Security. Do you believe self-defense ability should be democratized in a new setting? The implication is not that everyone would receive a gun, but rather that self-defense training and the ability to use a gun would be more widespread in the crew. Most people would evidently like to see less Security monopolization of threats. This question was intentionally pretty vague because there are a lot of ways to achieve this without being overbearing or stepping on Security's toes. I should note that this is a very "top to bottom" question - it is entirely setting dependant. You couldn't achieve something like this on the Horizon without compromising suspension of disbelief or the Horizon's main strong narrative pillars (we tried with the crew armoury and it ended up failing). One thing I brought up on the Discord about this question is that "democratizing self defense ability" doesn't necessarily mean that when a Technomancer goes "boo" you'd arm up the chef. There's still space for Security to be a first response force with the rest of the crew being on alert. However, I think focusing on the antagonist part of this problem is actually not the right way to look at it. If you look at this question from the point of view of Odyssey, it is tinted a lot more differently. It means, de facto, that more people would be able to be involved in the action in Odyssey without necessarily compromising Security's job to the degree of "I took out my gun, shot the technomancer, and the round is now over" that you might find if you accomplished something like this on a Secret-focused setting. How important do you believe phoron is to your character's life, in your opinion? This question is a massive condemnation of the failure that was the phoron scarcity. It was intended to be a massive universe event that drove the narrative forwards, and then, well... it just didn't. Just look at these answers. I'm pretty sure the people who answered 5 are all vaurca mains. Essentially, this boils down to the fact that the scarcity didn't have any mechanical consequences on the characters. We can harp on about how we're roleplayers and everything, but people need to feel things in-game for them to willingly take it as part of their characters! This applies TEN TIMES to things that are bad for their characters. That's the real, fundamental lesson that has to be taken from this - we can't afford to have big, bad events like the scarcity not affect gameplay. That's where we really went wrong - when we did the scarcity, we were very conservative with the effects on the Aurora and the Horizon, which led to it largely being ignored by the characters. How successful was the Horizon in your opinion? Despite all the criticism the Horizon gets, it's pretty evident that it resulted in some very good stories and some massive leaps forward in development and player culture. The only reason we could achieve something like Odyssey or the Konyang arcs is because we're on this ship. And this is fundamental, because the foundations we built with the Horizon are what we're carrying forward in the future for any new setting. Would you like it if phoron were to be made a fundamental part of both gameplay (thus by making many things require it in some way) and lore? There's an interesting split between ambivalence and interest here. I think this is something worth trying, although we clearly have to be very careful with the implementation. It's something I'll speak on at length some other time. To sum up my thoughts on the matter, it ties into what I said earlier. There's no phoron scarcity if you don't feel the effects in game. What is your opinion on money being a persistent and extremely important facet of the new setting and its characters? I would like to say there is no real surprise here. The lack of economic effects on characters is a pretty massive issue in a scifi setting that prides itself on having a living universe and characters that should care about socioeconomic factors. Should the Auroraverse be more fragmented in terms of its nations and entities? I left this question open ended because fragmenting a universe can be a pretty dramatic thing, and so people should take their own interpretation of it. Only then can you have a good idea of what it means to people. Either way, we have a small majority of people who think this should happen, a good amount of people who think we're fine, and more still who have no particular opinion. I think this underlines some discontent with the factions in the universe (or perhaps the staticness of it all?) although you should take this with grains of salt - my reading of this is that it highly depends on what factions you play and what characters you interact with. What is your opinion on scarcity of in-game resources as a core gameplay mechanic? It seems like scarcity as an integral part of the gameplay loop is very interesting to people - and that's good, because scarcity generates roleplay and mechanics. Things like having to ask Science to boost up the research levels so you can print your fancy antag destroyer mech is what makes Science's gameplay possible, and since that was slowly removed over the years... well, there you go, that's why Science is pointless now. The takeaway is that scarcity is something we should look into, and that scavenging is also a thing people generally like. No surprises on the last one, considering the massive success of Exploration on the earlier question about what departments should receive more gameplay. How important is off-server roleplay (such as on Discord) to you? This was the second most surprising question to me. I didn't expect so many 1s, personally, but it sort of makes sense when you think about it - those who use the Relay are a very small minority, and the people who do off-ship roleplay outside of it typically to do it in a very piecemeal/occasional way, with it not particularly forming an integral part of their gameplay. The takeaway here is that off-server roleplay is part of what makes Aurora Aurora, but it shouldn't be a ball around the server's ankle - it's clearly not what most people play for. It should be preserved with relevant opportunities, but the setting shouldn't be bent to make room for it, and it shouldn't be the main focus of development. On the open answers... Yes, I'll get around to reading all of them, trust me. I won't publish them for privacy purposes, however.

I appreciate the enthusiasm, but these suggestions are coming at far too early of a stage to even be considered. We can't really promise to even remember these two years down the line or however long it'll be when we decide the setting, which isn't even guaranteed to be something that fits these ideas. There will be a point when we'll announce what we have and listen to community input, but in the embryonic stages of a big project it is impossible to do anything with these suggestions.

Hello, everyone! A little bit of history - the Aurora station (that's right, the old map) launched sometime in 2016, and discussion around Aurora's future had already begun in 2018. This means that we are approaching the central point of the Horizon's existence and that we are wanting to collect player feedback on where Aurora should go, and your opinions on the current setting and any future setting. If you are interested in participating in the discussion on Aurora's future and potentially having a say in what we do, please fill the following form. It is extremely important that as many of you answer this form as truthfully and accurately as possible - you are obviously not going to be held accountable for the feedback you write (unless you write obscenities or joke answers), and this is the place for you to be 100% honest about what we are doing and what we should do. Please reach out to me if you are unsure about the meaning or implications of any specific questions. Staff may, of course, respond to this survey as well. https://forms.gle/TWX6cBBd2o67A34k6

The 18+ rating on SS13 is strictly intended as NSFW/not-NSFW content which is what actually gets you in extreme legal trouble if you expose minors to it. If we want to get really pedantic, PEGI allows you to show realistic violence starting from the 16+ rating. I personally like the lobby art, and I don't get the complaints about it being dissonant - the point of lobby arts is to be an introduction or a hook to what you might find in the game (and, more specifically to Aurora, the lore). It isn't dissonant at all to go from a fairly tame lobby screen to a Tajara getting headshotted, because that shows the depth of lore we have. There are good elements in Aurora as well as bad elements, and it's good to expose people to it. As for what new players might think, I imagine they are not squeamish, considering that in every server you can drink water+potassium and explode into tiny bits and organs all over the floor.

There is absolutely no reason for the armour game to be two-sided because it'd be a trap for the antagonist. Security always has at least two longarms deployed at any given time - there are always two officers with burst rifles and two officers with laser rifles, meaning that buying ablatives or ballistics is essentially useless since you'd just get steamrolled by two other officers with the opposite gun. Antagonists by default have access to the strongest weapons in the game which justify the existence of ballistic armor by themselves - seriously, 7.62, .50 and 357 are not calibers to be messed with, and those are all calibers accessible for something like 6 or 8 TC from the uplink, not a particularly big sum by any means. It's also entirely possible to kill someone through ballistic armour with a .50 - again, that's a handgun, can be holstered, available in the uplink for 6 TC, and its ammo costs 1 TC. All mercenaries have to do to bypass the armour issue is buy a singular laser rifle from the uplink. If you don't do it, that's on you for not preparing. A laser rifle will absolutely murder someone in ballistic armour in like 3 shots.

I don't think I'm opposed to this happening even if I think that it's extremely optimistic to believe that there would ever be two reporters in one round after a month of this being in.

Voting for dismissal; low-intensity rounds are needed to break up high intensity rounds. Besides, the issue is not with the gamemode but with people not toggling antags.

DM me on Discord when you would like your trial to start, take your time.

I've had a good look at what happened and at the logs in question. The first thing I want to address is that you are pretty worried that this ban was applied because we thought you were/are transphobic -- it wasn't. Cybs says so in his reply to your appeal as well. The actual reason you were banned is "You were banned a year ago for harassing a player in-game and out of it. You appear to be doing it again to a new player and should have really known better by now. Due to this, you are now community banned.". Reading what happened in the relay, it's all just really odd. You were basically slightly mocked by someone, and your reaction to that was going to the consular to talk to them about "This mostly ran with Levi who continued to claim to be a proud dominan that constantly befriended synthetics. hung out with them and aut'akh." This is a bizzarre reaction to say the least because you definitely know the impact that speaking to a Dominian consular about this specific thing has - it can end up in character death, and you're more than well aware due to the fact that you played a PRA character. You pointed it out in your own post, actually, so I'm not going to pretend that you had no clue about what you were doing, which is essentially aiming a gun at someone's head over a joke. Add to this calling them a degenerate (this is a very bad word to say to someone, don't downplay it) out of pocket, and I honestly just do not understand your reaction to this whole interaction. You turned a Relay messaging back and forth between two characters that had never met before into a potential character death for the other, all because your character was called a "washed out actor". You have to understand that at this point this is an OOC issue. You kept it IC in the sense that you acted only IC, but your character's reaction was both entirely unreasonable from an OOC standpoint, and your reaction is entirely unjustifiable from a logical perspective. What I want to get across is that your actions could have permanently killed a character you never knew IC, and the best possible view of this is that you did it because you were called a washed out actor. What I also don't find good is how you kept going IC despite the millions of red flags, multiple people tried telling your character how fucked that was and I don't even see a single hint of remorse from you OOC, not once did you think that maybe it was a bad idea or to inquire about how the player felt. To reiterate, this is why you were banned, and not because you are supposedly transphobic. My verdict is that the ban is staying, and I'll be locking this in 24 hours.

This somehow completely escaped me, are you still interested?

@WickedCybs need you to elaborate on the similarities you were pointing out in the unban appeal, please.

All due respect I'm going to get to your complaint whenever I have the material time and energy to spend on it, so you can stop bumping it.

What is being contested here? You made an appeal which is explicitly only something you're meant to do when you agree with the punishment. Now you are making a staff complaint over the denial of the appeal, which is not something admissible anyway because our policy (written on the wiki publicly) is that two permabans means you lose all right to appeal forever.

should be lifted