MattAtlas

this is a very, very good idea

On trial until 9AUG2024.

Accepted.

This is kind of the existential problem I have to face. If it's not Odyssey, then what? Secret is a dying gamemode and it's basically on its last throes. Nobody wants to play antagonist so something needs to change, but there hasn't been any discourse other than Odyssey. I don't know how you can keep civilain roleplay while overhauling the antagonist gameplay loop. Seriously - the only possible change is lightening antagonist rules to an insane degree. Adding new antagonists hardly ever does anything, techno and borer were considered great for the first few weeks then they were put into the trash tier by most of the playerbase.

I do not see how this gamemode doesn't completely overshadow and eventually take over Secret's role as the main gamemode, since the only people playing antagonist now are the usual 2-3 guys and people who've just found the server. This leads to it being played constantly and kind of necessarily changing the server. I guess you could still have people vote extended though as we all know that's usually a deadhour exclusive.

You guys really ought to remind me when I forget about your apps. Accepted!

I'll copy and paste here what my thoughts on the test are. I think gameplay-wise it's a stunning success - it's basically exporting the high-intensity event formula to a playable gamemode, that can be adapted up or down on intensity depending on the type of mission chosen and what the actors/storyteller are feeling like at the moment. There are mechanical kinks to work out, however. The main ones have to do with some jobs, such as the AI, the BCs, and their role in the game. However, this gamemode provides us with an excellent opportunity to finally give some good gameplay integration to departments desperately in need of it, like Operations and Science, because things they can participate in are constantly happening. The main problem I see is that it's a really big departure from our usual style of roleplay. The average antagonist round, going by the event scale, is probably classified as a medium or high intensity round. It is, however, balanced by the fact that there's usually at least an hour of... nothing, where you get to play your character and pretend to be a civilian in a spaceship. If you are constantly being sent down to missions, you lose that civilian part of the roleplay. And I think that's a part that's already been plenty hacked at with the crew armoury and slow militarization of the Horizons (which I've already commented on plenty as mistakes on my part). In short - the main consideration to make will be on whether or not this shift is wanted, I think.

Hello, my favourite lab rats... I mean players. Today we ran a test of how a hypothetical worst case scenario Odyssey round would go. Dreamy wanted to test his map, and I thought that it would be useful to extend that to a white-room scenario of what would happen in the worst possible Odyssey round. Ergo: if Odyssey can work as a gamemode with no Storyteller and no help beyond what the situation gives you. I think it was conceptually a success. I saw a very engaged crew (especially Engineering!) and the actors came up with some fantastic improv and stories, with even cute little side stories such as the donut arc. For context, I intentionally did not tell the actors anything until I spawned them in (which took very long because I had to spawn them manually, since I used a broken version of the branch by accident - sorry!), told them the premise of the map and what I would tell Command with an announcement, and absolutely nothing else. They had no information leading up to the round, so they had no time to come up with a gimmick before they played, and I think the result was still stellar. We've gone down and written the mechanical bugs of the map. I'm more interested to hear in this thread what you conceptually thought about the gamemode. Do you think you were entertained? Did you have things to do in your department? Did you think it was noticeably different from your usual round? And so on. Soon, likely next week (depending on when I leave on vacation to get a tan), we'll run a second test with the actual gamemode, a fixed map, and a non-admin Storyteller. I hope to see you then!

it depends on the CMO's background. non-chemist CMOs cannot do chemistry

Sorry for the delay! On trial until 20JUL2024.

On trial until 20JUL2024.

please try connecting again

I'll lock this, then. If you have any further questions don't hesitate to reach out over Discord.

What people need to understand in general is that we don't make these restrictions up on the spot because we say so. These "silly" restrictions have all been put in place because of precedent, to break a certain kind of culture. This has historically always been a successful approach. Removing the detective's ability to run into combat (removal of the lethal .38 ammo) effectively killed the combat detective stereotype. The disability guidelines completely killed the mute engineers and mute officers that caused a shitload of headaches for staff in the past. I could go on and on, but looking at these policiess as walls to bring down isn't really the correct way of looking at it. They're there for a reason, and by staying there they prevent the old culture issues from starting up again. The dystopia argument is pretty much irrelevant, really. It has never been the reason why I made the disability guidelines, and I'm not sure why people talk about it. I made them specifically to stop certain kinds of character archetypes from being made where they logically don't fit and hamper gameplay. That doesn't mean that things weren't overlooked, but there was serious debate in modchat/staff discord in general when these were made. Now onto the proposal itself. I agree with everything here, I guess. I don't particularly like it, but I don't disagree either. The consideration for psychs not being able to be blind is that they have medical training. It would be quite odd for a blind person to be treating someone. Mute hangar tech is a no because of ship weapons. The rest is OK. I agree with everything here, I think.

I don't think I have any particular objections to this idea other than concerns over the access and it being... quite confusing, really, considering now you'd have a generic assistant role and another assistant role in the department.

Looking at your logs, what was going to happen was clearly telegraphed. A few relevant lines: In our rules, killing someone without roleplay is not necessarily a rulebreak. There are situations where it's acceptable. A common example is a security officer happening upon an antagonist killing someone - in that case, the antagonist is well within their rights to "shut up" the security officer. Another example is a hostage escaping and trying to run - the antagonist can always mow them down without mercy at that point. In your case, the relevant rule is that the amount of roleplay needed depends on the escalation. By this point in the round, someone had already died (Clarity Beck) and it was said over Common many times. Their death was basically announced by the Unathi on the planet and, well, the Retinue clearly spoke about killing everyone when they landed. This was at almost (if not past) the 2 hour mark with plenty of prior roleplay beforehand. I don't see a gank here. I think your character took a risk in going to find Eris and it didn't play out to their advantage. That's totally fine, and these risks are what make events fun, in the end. Looking at the logs I don't really see any deadchecking, which would have been a real problem. The volunteer seems to have shot you quite a lot, but I think it's within the bounds of someone who is actively trying to kill you, pretty much - it looks like you were hit 7-8 times with what's essentially a .45 bullet, equating to about 210ish damage not counting damage that gets halved due to penetrating into your organs. For reference, 7 revolver bullets would be 315 damage, 7 7.62 bullets would be 245, and so on. I think the decision made by the loremasters is fine, in the end. What also factors into my decision is that there needs to be some sort of risk during events - risk that cannot be felt if event volunteers cannot feasibly shoot-to-kill like in this case.

Staff complaints are inherently for contesting a wrong decision. When you say that "Villa and Trio's decision is sound and they have a right to it", and following that, "the storytelling could benefit from Zofia's survival", this comes off as a matter of personal view rather than any procedural mistake by the loremasters. In that case there is little to contest, and I'm not sure if there is much we can investigate here. Just to be sure - is this what you meant with your complaint?

Head staff elections are not going to happen for a lot of reasons that were already stated. They're silly popularity contests that handicap the staff team's ability to take strong decisions more than anything. A lot of important decisions that changed the server for the better were unpopular at first and could only be taken because head staff didn't have to fear being voted out. Separate policy suggestions for more transparency in certain areas would be OK. Voting for dismissal.

On trial

I originally didn't want to reply to your complaint, but your bad faith against me has now become abundantly clear thanks to your latest thread, which is as direct and open of an attack against me as you could make. I'm not going to sit by and let you call me both incompetent and in need of replacement. You said you were "brooding" in that thread - I think you should apologize for the way you've gone about trying to get what is essentially nothing more than a personal vendetta. This is on you, and not on us. The entire application process and the expectations clearly outline that you need to know the lore, and what an acceptable character is. It's up to you to make a reasonable character. We give you a ton of freedom to do so, we don't even double-check people's characters most of the time and we let them make whatever they want within the confines of the rules. You say here that "the SCC knowingly and charitably promoted an SSMD affiliate and Sol patriot into a command position". No, you made a character that is against the rules, and you are going to have to remove (read: retcon) the parts that break the rules. Your SSMD flag was denied. You were told very clearly at that time: "It's hard to believe that the SCC, already having a rocky relationship with the Sol alliance, is going to allow a looted flag branded with Szlazi's fleet. The Southern Military District was actively hostile to Biesel and engaged their ships and raided their territory for most of its existence. Near the end they did have a ceasefire, though that doesn't quite make up for it. That makes it harder to justify versus one of the wildland states that wasn't so belligerent." You were already given the exact same reasoning I gave you for your flagpatch being unacceptable. If a flag isn't, then a flagpatch that's constantly displayed on your person also logically isn't. I would like you to tell me how the SCC is politically neutral when Solarian consulars aren't allowed on the ship, something done as a direct political response to the invasion of Biesel. I'll look into this and if it breaches the regulation I've made clear time and time again then it will be removed. That said, you made your flagpatch (and had your flag denied) well before this item was allowed, so if anything you should have told us that it broke the rules, not used it as a bat in your own complaint. You're making a lot of ifs that assume that you made your character to be totally compliant with the lore. If bwoink you to not wear the flagpatch because it breaks the rules then necessarily you have to change your character to not do that. It doesn't matter what she did - if you display an anti-corporate symbol, the SCC is going to look down upon you, and that's too much for heads of staff. Those characters can exist, just like Kira being an SSMD sympathizer is fine, the key point is that they can't OPENLY and INDISCRIMINATELY display their anti-corporate leanings. These characters have to be made with care. You can even make a Captain that dislikes the SCC, maybe they just took the job because it pays well and they're a hypocrite. The reality of climbing the corporate ladder is that you have to make moral sacrifices and your character will likely be a hypocrite. That's good - it makes your character conflictual, having to break your morals to climb the ladder is something that you can easily transform into character fuel. The important thing is that you can't make a head of staff character that behaves the exact same as a normal character. You have more limitations and that's part of the game. It's up to you to make them into interesting limitations, because you definitely can. As for the rest of what you've written; DPRA individuals can be be heads of staff... if you omit the rest of the rule. This essentially means that you cannot be ALA-affiliated as a head of staff. As for Himeans, I already corrected you in your ticket, you are way off. A Himean needs to renounce everything they are to be a head of staff - their citizenship, their family, their friends, and they are permanently exiled from Himeo. No Himean that loves their country is doing that. Similarly, no Himean head of staff is going to be allowed to wear Himean paraphernalia. You call this inconsistent, but you are the one creating these inconsistencies by making wrong claims about the lore.

Try again?

Hi, apologies for the extreme delay - I've had a long break. You've been unbanned from security.

Hi, apologies for the extreme delay - I've had a long break. Check if you can join now, you should be unbanned.

Hi, apologies for the extreme delay - I've had a long break. Check if you can join now, you should be unbanned.

As the person that ultimately decided that your whitelist should be stripped, the key thing to understand is that you did not do your due diligence on extremely important matters that involve another player's character. You deciding to lie about Erwin being in a relationship with a Shell to your home nation and also neglecting to tell staff that you were going to lie, are pretty big things to mess up. This goes doubly so when you later change your mind on a dime. These things can have severe effects on a character or even on the player's will to play the character - what you did is going far beyond the rules. To add to this, not telling the Human loredev about something as important as your character lying to their home nation cannot be attributed to a simple misunderstanding or being forgetful. If this weren't your first offense, sure - but this is not your first offense with a command whitelist. Ultimately, your whitelist was stripped because this isn't the first time you've been talked to about command play by us, and also because this is more severe than a simple in-game rules violation.