Cassie

You know what the best part of this forum is? I have to say this, sorry if it adds to my villain persona by being overly blunt, but how else can I put such a thing. People who tell people not to be hostile while speaking in the same tone they used. Or people who confrontationally tell others to not to be so confrontational. Or those who tell people to be civil and think about others feelings, by doing anything but that. Or people who talk about the "heated" thread by adding more heat. Let's not forget those who talk about rational discussion and facilitating the points of both sides without actually reading the thread post contents. Then claim moral superiority. Honestly, what is that exactly? Are you trying to prove these "suggestions" work you're breaking them yourselves? Because I'd be very curious if you do manage to bring in your points without resorting to the above, show us the "way" to speak. It's condescending and pompous and I honestly think that 80% of the time it's not even genuine. Anyway, if there's one thing I agree with, this thread stopped being useful ages ago. Not because of anyone's "tone" but because no one is willing to cave in. Some high-horses might actually say it's the fault of both sides, but hey, that's how the view looks like from the peanut gallery.

Well. Sue is not being ganged up on. She is not a victim, and the term "ganging up" does not apply to her. If you can define the difference between "ganged up on", and "problem player that many people have had problems with" then I'll gladly discuss that with you. In general, on one hand, the community is telling us, "Well, to be honest, I can't see too many incidents with [player], so I can't say much." and then saying "Don't make incidents with [player]!" which is silly because it provides no solution to highlight problem-players. To add, people are demonizing those who are raising concern, which is frankly a dodgy move. It does not seem like anyone cares about the feelings of the people who raised issues on the topics and that in itself is very worrying. I'm not criticizing Sue because I'm an evil witch she looked at me funny. I couldn't care less if she didn't get a warning, a job ban, or anything like that - all I want is someone to say "Okay, Susan's actions/philosophy, as well any anyone who shares them is unacceptable. We'll have rule x to accomdate this.". Even if the focus was taken off Susan this would honestly be great. That's the point I'm making here.

Dude stop. That is not fair at all 1138. I've been highlighting the lack of certainty on rules way before. What kind of mediation is it to take a moral high ground, ignore what people have been saying, and dismissing frustration as "lol lynch 4 no raison"? Yes, I also criticize Susan, but I am very critical to the problem as well. Even other people have highlighted this over and over way before Skull and Cres:

You know, we might as well scrap the player complaints board and never complain again amirite guys? On serious note. My only complaint isn't the contents of the thread, it's the fact that no lines are drawn about acceptable behaviour/ethos of the server, and players are being left to brawl-to-the-death over who is right because it hasn't been defined by authority. Like what the fuck.

:3 I too, can derail threads with kitties.

Ayeye... You see, it's not really even the tone of the posts that's doing the issue, people have acknowledged what each others problems are and such - it's just that they've made their mind up and are waiting for the other side to cave in or something; did you know people can even do that with a nice tone? If I see another point repeated, or have to repeat myself, or another niceness mediator from Equestria I will chop off my braids and donate them to the server as a good luck token. I consider myself having the highest tolerance for forum conflict but even I realize it's no longer productive (the back and forthness), I only tolerate drama when it gets somewhere. Someone who has staff power just needs to stop the wishy-washiness and make a forum decision: "Yes or no." and announce it. Problem solved.

Eighty-two posts? All because Susan can't face the community and say "Hey guys, you know what. I admit the mistakes I have made. Sorry about the p2w silly things I've done. I'm going to play this game in a way that provides mutual roleplay for both myself and others. I'm also going to work on making my character less of a self-insert and keep my OOC and IC emotions separate, possibly work on taking the game as a game and looking to find fun with myself and other members of community! Now let's put this in the past and work together." There's nothing wrong with the complainers. Just because Susan is nice to you doesn't mean you can let her get away with being hostile in-game and powertripping in the game. I realize all individuals are unique, complex, and have more than what appears on the surface, I am sure Susan has a lovely side to her - talented, maybe a good sense of humor? Does that mean she can walk over people IC'ly? No. I have an issue with her philosophy which is the root of this problem, and I do think she's robust but she doesn't provide good antag/arrest/security roleplay for people (and in many cases, dampens it) she is arresting who are RP'ers as well. Frances I love you to bits, I really do even now. But please, the lawyering of Susan has to stop, she is not a victim, if anything she is a victim to her victims which isn't really victimhood at all. Granted, I don't think the thread of Susan wouldn't be severe in my eyes if I just met Susan and no one had bad interactions with her, your defense of her would be logical in that sense. However, this is not the case. Susan has done similar things over and over again. Even people on reddit (not mentioning the LRP'ers who grief and do stupid shit) have encountered Susan and officers similar to her and thinks this represents Aurora. When I was new, I remember having nothing but bad experience with sec officers pulling powergamey shit , that has left a stain on my impression of Aurora even now but I've told myself and others there's hope on this. This is not a grudge, that is a valid reason to show upset and be concerned. I do believe Susan shouldn't be singled out because this behaviour on server is not unique to her, but now the topic's come out I think that it just needs to be dealt with, over and done - as harsh as it may be, just make her an example. There's players on Aurora who are like Susan and need to see this situation unfold so they know this is unacceptable. As for the people complaining about the forum hostility but are opposing this; I ask, chronic in-game hostility or forum bluntness during a serious scenario, which is actually worse here?

Any opinions on Dendritic the IPC?

You see, Sue might be making a lot of "enemies" because her IC actions are not kept in check, and frankly she gets away with a lot. Keep this going on for weeks, months, etc, and naturally resentment will build. This is not a witch-hunt, that is actually a poorly managed situation that has escalated. Keep in mind that the person who reported Sue was a new member who had a first experience with her as well. Sue gets complaints over consistent similar issues, revealing an unlying problem. I'd describe a situation as a petty witch hunt if say, someone did something that is not related to the gameplay, like personal issues (IE: Someone breaks up with one of their friendship groups due to an argument over Game of Thrones, soon after, three incident reports show up on forums over silly little things like "Ran around with stun baton showing on code blue!" repeatedly until everyone turns against that person.)

Okay, about the harmbatoning. I tested it on my own baystation server, and it seems that harmbatonning does not produce three messages when on harm intent - it produces one. Another friend I pulled from the depths of the earth told me it produces two per hit on their build. On Aurora's build I reserve judgement until I actually see it for myself in screenshots since I know it's a modified chimera, I admit. I noticed the messages just say "beaten" on mine, and "stunned" on a few on Auroras. My complaint however was the fact she used the harm intent in the first place - I realize that you mention this was IC but I bring us back to the fact that the shuttle was coming and there's a particular rule that is on our server that prevents escape fights: Can someone bring up the reason this rule was create and why, despite the shuttle only being a few seconds away from docking, why it exists om the context of conflict? I realize that this rule does not technically fully apply to this situation but the courtesy should OOC'ly stand. Ana harmbatonned the OP's character, which causes physical harm - on an unarmored person just before the shuttle was about to dock. Not only that, the chance of breaking bones (as Sue said) would be after the second hit, but as you can see in the screenshot OP's character's chest ripped open with only one hit because the stun baton on harm intent and is a very powerful weapon which is enough to cause bleeding, dizziness, infection and eventually lost consciousness in some cases. As evidenced by posts here, it does not seem there was a genuine interest to roleplay with OP, it was OOC aggression channeled into IC and the disregard of the power and risk of harm batonning shows this. Were weapons really needed over name calling? Really? Anything written RP wise to indicate to the OP's character "Hey, this is an RP situation, play along?". No. All in all, Sue's character basically went to lethal weapon mode over being called a 'poopyhead', which resulted in a "messy mistake" with very little leading up to it in the view of OP who is new and did not get any enjoyment or any interesting RP from this apart from gasping on their way to Centcom HQ. In my opinion this was not truly caused by Ana Roh'hi'tin's emotional trauma, but rather the player Susan's "Talk shit, get hit" attitude which is something that security shouldn't play because it leads to things like this.

If I'm completely honest, I've seen rivalries, bar fights, job role fights, arguments that escalated into violence, etc. I'm not unfamiliar or against conflict RP, in fact, I love it. But! The shuttle was coming and the round was ending, what benefit would using a harmbaton (knowing the risks) be on producing enjoyable RP for both parties? It seems OP would have been slowly dying and gasping on the shuttle until the end of the round, and this strikes me hard because I do recall being harmbatoned by EMT before shuttle departure too by another player once - it's ridiculous. There's nothing you can do, often you bleed and lose consciousness. A normal stun baton used repeatedly on non-harm intent and Ana Roh'hi'tin screaming, "I'm tirrred of you! I am tirrrred of everrrything!" would have produced a better effect imo.

It's really not some one singular issue to be honest. I mean, I have not made any specific player/character complaints on this forums. When I see someone doing something problematic that I see is quite widespread, I make a topic/complaint about the behaviour, not the person. But, when this happens, people say "Well, you'll have to make a topic when you see the actual behaviour so we can deal with it, or we can't help you." and I get tempted to do so because some people's IC conduct is so bad that it has destroyed my enjoyment of the actual game. Especially metarage passed off as IC rage (when I can obviously tell the difference), which is one of the worst things you can possibly do. When people finally do make a topic in complaints/incidents on individual incidents, people say "Why are there so many topics! This community is hostile!" when in reality this community has been "hostile" for a while, and it's just more visible because it is being confronted directly. Usually in these situations, one or two things is happening: 1. Someone who fell out with a group of RP'ers for personal unrelated things is being picked on for little things in hopes of pecking them out. 2. Someone has gotten away with a certain set of destructive IC and OOC behaviours for a while now, and due to one person finally breaking the mould and speaking out, others take suit. Now, how can we differentiate the two without lumping them in one whole unfairly? Because I don't think all the complaints in the complaints section are equal at all.

How do I put this simply? How a decent officer handles this situation: Flash/Stun Baton (non-harm intent) once > Handcuffs > Brig shuttle How the situation was handled: And that's why this complaint exists. Okay? That is not how a security officer conducts themselves.

Take a seat, my dear. Long post, don't have to read it all I guess. This always existed. The carpet has been pulled back and the unvacuumed dirt is still there. The proverbial lynch squad I see getting at Bokaza is a good example of that. You seeee... Bokaza isn't perfect, lemme set that straight. He is a really good guy and still has his flaws imo, but I can honestly pull up tons of player names who have manifested behavior incomparable to his and magnified in destructibility - that are not getting similar character reports. Why? It's dodgy and a bit weird. Simply put. People are not honest, there is no consistency on what is and isn't allowed and it is lefts to anyone's perception - and it allows bullying via incident reports to happen. It shows certain people to be let off (IE: liked enough by community, friends with certain people, people who others are scared to report in case of drama/metabullying because of their popularity) and certain people to get the fire (IE: people who are new, less popular, or had a fallout with a few in the community someone more popular.) So! Reason why this sort of system happened.. well, as you described. Aurora happened to be a family in the beginning right? This is a nice way to begin a server, people all tight-knit and close to each other; in the birth of the server everyone is less judgmental of each other, goof and grow and mature as players. Then once they reach a certain level of skill/experience etc, they begin turning their judgmental lens on at new entering people; holding them to higher standards that they have been held themselves. Reason is, they want more seasoned players like themselves, but won't take the cost of hosting new players while doing it. As a result, this is the first step of server suicide as old players will eventually leave and many new players will either be jaded and leave, or masochistically stay and take shit and eventually become abusers themselves when they get experience. Secondly, because people judge new players so badly, they will not often check the skill level and ability of new players or anyone percieved to be a newbie (such as something as simple as having blue hair). This is bad as not all of them are amateurs and unable to RP - but this does not matter to many as a lot of the existing playerbase already has their friends for consistent RP and do not feel the need to extend their circle 90% of the time. The new playerbase, either consistent of new players, experienced RP'ers, and griefers are left cut off from the community and do their own thing. New players might get hated on. Experienced new players might get angry and lash out at the cold/hostile atmosphere of the server caused by people who have carefully planned out their RP for the round and don't want interrupters. Despite the fact that Aurora can hit 50+ players at peak time, the server can feel like a barren ghostland when you have no one to clique to, enforcing even more... cliques because once you find an RP buddy who isn't locked up in some department you wanna keep them forever. Griefers just fuck things up for all sides and provoke sec to be more hostile but are ignoreable (and frankly, should be dealt with by admins) and some of them are scorned players coming back as troublesome ghouls, to be honest. In the end, some of the older players who existed within the tight knit community may welcome newer players. I also strongly believe that if you see your friends doing something wrong to people while RP'ing that might have escalated to an OOC level you shouldn't be afraid to call them out on it, making abuse less acceptable; making affirmative steps to do inter-community healing instead of waiting for the situation to escalate. Dedicate some rounds to chair RP, but allow you and your character to be spontaneous and find new people sometimes. Don't fear new people, even the ones who can't RP, even if you don't want to RP with them just be chill. As the clash between new and old, I think the old RP'ers fear change quite a bit, maybe to a contrary level; that's no good eh? Any questions?

Sigh. I've been getting a lot of PMs and skype messages. I think I'll give this another go, simply because. Also, yes, I am quite the trendsetter. I've got to be careful man. (The silent screams of "NOOOO!" are faintly heard in the background.)

I think I should take my leave now. I think that generally some will be happy to see me go, but that's okay. I took the risks and I accept the consequences of what I have done here because I knew what I've been doing the entire time. I have few regrets if any. When I first came to Aurora (around last year) I was very excited and I liked the server so much on first impression that I wanted to sprite for it, I guess I wanted to form an attachment to the server somehow and help out with dev, etc. I wanted to just have an SS13 home really. I think, one of the things I wanted to do is become a diona nymph and roleplay one in good detail because it had been months since I last played SS13. On a comical note; I never got to be one after all. Heh. I like the high concentrations of roleplayers that Aurora has, as well as the fact that most people here are able to play the game really well. I have my gripes about the server (note: hardly missable previous posts) but the above still stands as truth. That said, recently, I don't feel like I enjoy playing on Aurora any more. I think I started to feel the wane. All the things I've learned, the community issues have basically just made it really hard to roleplay. I thought I could fix the issue by directly confronting what was wrong but I realize nothing can change, even if I did I still wouldn't be happy. I think that nothing is really worth it anymore. Maybe I wanted to make a statement of some sort, maybe start to let it all out because I realized nothing could fix the situation. The least I could do was express myself right? Even now, I don't feel a lot of passion for Aurora any more, I think that maybe this is preferred and I should finalize it because it's hard to put into words. Right now I'm kinda incoherently babbling about things but I'm just flowing things as I type. I just want you guys to know that regardless of the debates we have had, I may not agree with you, I may not even like all of you, but I don't hate you guys. Anyway, I think that this is for the best. Wish you the best too, and peace.

Yeah I know. It was written quite tongue-in-cheek. Though apart from the bartender, security tends to have armor/helmets so this really won't be affecting them that often, unless they removed it. My only genuine comment is the last sentence, however. I think if there was a restriction somehow on people full-on using it as a buff melee weapon it wouldn't be much of a deal.

A number of SS13 crewmen were found severely injured or dead in medbay, their organs had perforated and bruise marks were scattered all over their bodies. Centcom inquired about why the amount of crew causalities increased after security interrogation. Security told them that corrolation does not mean caustation and that they all fell down the stairs. On the station, there were no stairs. On serious note, man, I'm 50/50 on this one. Stunning seems okay, organ brute damage is kinda meh. Skull fractures seem reasonable, but in the midsection - not so much.

Jackboot, I agree full heartedly. In this case I am actually happy to donate sprites of my own if the server needs it.

The problem I have here is that everything believe everyone not agreeing with sec is into chaos, and there's only two ends of the spectrum that everyone lingers. Some people have been tossed into the brig for having tasteful, mild roleplay, and sometimes good roleplay - and being judged for that. Some people have been thrown in the brig for false charges because the sec officer was too busy judging to actually have the situation investigated before assuming stuff. "More success" in what? RP, or "winning", because I'm confused of what you are trying to succeed in here. I am not saying no one can be arrested for crimes, because they can. But the following issues need to be realized. 1. Low risk or harmless fluff crimes (like someone sneaking whiskey out of the bar) can be ignored during, say, red alert on a nuke round when there's more important matters at hand. If security are going to stress to people about how they're horrible because "they've got so much to do", they need to prioritize. 2. Security can be a drug for some people. You can hate a certain person so much, that you're willing to crank up the charges, be hostile, and then brig them longer if they bite back. Security can be the perfect department to enact a metagrudge or gang up on someone, and get away with it for this reason. This is why I say security has a lot of power, and needs an equal amount of responsiblity to balance that. If people can't handle this, they should just admit it. 3. I'm not talking about griefers, this is not the conversation. I'm talking about roleplayers, roleplaying fluff crimes. Situations and times that are obviously roleplayed. There's a huge... huge difference. Whenever I have this conversation people instantly jump to the stereotype of the worse crime committed and goon-originate asshole you can imagine. I don't actually have a problem with this, never said I did. I hate peaceful antags (though I don't police them), please understand that not ganking is not the same as being peaceful. Yes, that's an issue, but my complaint was ganking, not non-peaceful antags. Okay, to wrap this up. Here's the issue: I too believe in freedom on how people should roleplay; until it starts pressing on people's toes. I'm not even here criticizing every aspect of security that I do not like; there are plenty - I am only bringing up stuff that affects the RP of people who are not security. It's not like security are some secluded role on the station that hardly interacts with anyone else, they have an active part in shaping the round for everyone else, so please, please please just tone down the shit. Allow antags to breathe a bit, roleplay sec a bit more realistically - you're not army commando for gods sake... not on extended anyway.

Phew, how to put this? Hmm... okay. Just because someone identifies and points out flaws of security does not mean they are oblivious to how hectic and dysfunctional the game is to security and/or has not played as one. I've played sec on here quite a few times (I'm not fond of the role any more), and I only play during peak hour due to timezones so I know how messy it can get. Believe it or not, I played security for ages on Hypatia before coming here - Hypatia has more grief and nonsense (as well as disorganization) than Aurora, and at one point I came close to being the shitcurity I criticize today. My flaws were not listening to the people I arrested (like even to check if the person was innocent because I was too busy going to arrest the next dubiously 'uninnocent' person), taking the side of more respectable job positions, assistant prejudice, and allowing other sec members to do questionable things (like electrochair or laser people who were just doing the crime of being verbally rude). That can be associated with some people here - however! With time, I just grew out of it. Reason is I just changed my perspective and motive on playing the game, I believe I just lost the ideals of keeping a station... crime free? Overall when it comes to security, chill. Lay back. It's a game. Especially when I've seen security overreact to small regulation breaks, I'm thinking "Mate yes, it's written in the books. But pick your battles smart on this one if you have more serious stuff to follow up on.", and there's no need to be stressed. Unless the floor is literally coated with blood, everything is tg/goon tier, chaotic, no RP hospitable environment, and the station is about to blow up, it will be okay (OOC'ly) if you don't catch them all. It's not Pokemon.

Yes, these things will still happen. The difference is: Since they're set, making complaints is way easier than pursuing an unwritten rule. Less incident reports will happen, the topics will be shorter. For example (and don't follow the bomb thing too logically here): *Making bombs and exploding them in silly areas is against the rules* *Player 1 sees Player 2 do this* Player 1: Player 2 just set off a bomb in medbay. Admin 1: That's no good. Admin 2: Yep, that's definitely against the rules. Player 2: I confirm I did that. But it's not so baaaad, the bomb was very tiny, and no one was there--- Admin 2: It was in the rules however, to stop anybody getting hurt. There's reasons it's there. Make a complaint about the rules but in this situation you have broken them so Player 1 is justified. Player 2: Fine. *Making bombs and exploding them in silly areas is not defined in rules* *Player 1 sees Player 2 do this* Player 1: Player 2 just set off a bomb in medbay. Admin 1: Hm, that's a bit of a grey area. Admin 2: I don't like what he did to be honest. Player 2: I can confirm I did that, but I quickly wanted to test the bomb before round end. Player 1: But I you vented it and I couldn't leave. Player 2: Didn't see you there bud. Player 1: Well just don't do it. Player 2: It's not against the rules though. Admin 1: Tbh it was a silly thing to do. Some Random Dude: Meh you didn't die, so whatever. Let's wait until someone actually dies from this. Player 2: It's not fair because blah blah and it was this and that, and no rules were broken and blah Admin 2: I dunno, man. It's subjective, no one got hurt and blah blah - endless discussion, topic eventually resolves, issue repeats self -

1138, I believe if there were clear guidelines on how security should behave, and it set in stone and acknowledged as "This is how you play the job", then the amount of incident reports wouldn't be as high. You see, you can definitely make an incident report about many cases, but if it was set in stone many people (especially being carried over from other servers where shitcurity is not handled) would be warned in the rules/regulations first (heck, even make a corporate regulation about it so it can be handled IC'ly too) and the situations will be more fluid to resolution. I think, maybe try to understand that it can be difficult for some people (IE: Not Cassie) to take a forum battering, and people can be very dismissive in incident reports, sometimes it's also the issue of metagruding post-reports which notoriously hard to prove unless you've got tons of logs and persoanal history to prove it. Some people don't like the forwardness and conflict of those things because of the publicity and the grudges of "Ugh, you made it public!", so maybe make a more visible opening for more private reports with an admin as a middleman - who can be reached by ahelp and then carry it to forum PMs between the two parties or something. You might do this already, but make it more obvious for newer members because when I was new I had no idea you could do this. Not everyone will bring it forward, I think it's staff's (and players) job to be proactive and notice subtle forms of "Not okay'ness" and "Too muchness" going on within ranks, and also calling out dodgy behaviour within sec before the actual incidents happen to make it hard for shitcurity to thrive, even if it means telling off a friend (who may indeed have a nice side) now and then.

Okay, 1138 please check the title and purpose of this thread, then you will understand why this can't be individual issue, but a systematic issue that has be handled in a way other than incident reports. It's not the 'shitheads' that are simply the problem, it's the system that allows the 'shitheads' to proliferate and retain the shitheadry on the server. Not sure if I can come up with an analogy to explain this. So yeah. If the questions are answered, then perhaps admins can regulate what is and isn't acceptable behavior, a set guide if you will - and there will be less debates on incident reports if x person's behaviour was justified or not. It strongly discourages people to write up incident reports if the server's not even set on what is and isn't okay behaviour. The incident reports section has repeated issues related to the questions brought up in original post, so this topic is actually quite useful and we should use it as such.

Alright, very well. I was observing that round but not fully knowing the IC context but considering it's happened to me twice (and sadly I didn't log back then. Here's a new example then: