Herpetophilia2

BYOND Key: Herpetophilia Total Ban Length: Permanent Banning staff member's Key: Peppermint96 Reason of Ban: "Powergaming and encouraging poor practices. Destroying trash piles to loot things as a security officer, which has since been taught to new players. This kind of thing isn't okay and leads to server wide issues. Bragging about it is also not a good look." Reason for Appeal: It has been more than a year since my ban, during which I have been playing on and off (although not as much as I'd like due to IRL issues) across different departments. This experience has given me a new set of skills in roleplaying and I am confident that I can return to playing Security with an improved temperament. I have had enough time to see the full effects that Security can have on the outcome of a round as well as the experience of other players, and have learned to consider such consequences when making important decisions. This has also allowed me to look back at my ban and understand the possible repercussions of my behavior and identify similar problems in the future. Having been given the opportunity to see many rounds from different departments' perspectives gave a better idea of the complex balancing act between Security and Antagonists, with how even simple things such as looting trash piles may, over time, add up into bigger problems.

They seem to have a very good understanding of Vaurca lore, as well as great skill on roleplay. Their characters, especially Fox-Hound, are very fun to interact with. Definite +1 from me.

BYOND Key: Herpetophilia Total Ban Length: Permanent Banning staff member's Key: Peppermint96 Reason of Ban: "Powergaming and encouraging poor practices. Destroying trash piles to loot things as a security officer, which has since been taught to new players. This kind of thing isn't okay and leads to server wide issues. Bragging about it is also not a good look." Reason for Appeal: It's been a bit longer than 7 months since my security job ban (and last ban appeal.) This has given me a lot of time to think about my ban, and now I've come back to make a new ban appeal. I agree and understand that this may be my last chance of playing security and thus will take a different approach to playing once I am unbanned. Being more serious about the role and its potential effects on the rest of the server is going to be the first step. I think I will spend a good amount of time playing Cadet and using this opportunity to learn about how others go about being security and implement it into my own roleplaying.

Considering my aforementioned history, it's safe to assume that this will probably be the last chance given to me to improve my behavior. As stated in the original post, I will now strive to do my best in putting others before me and making better decisions when playing Security, so as to avoid something like this from happening again.

BYOND Key: Herpetophilia Total Ban Length: Permanent Banning staff member's Key: Peppermint96 Reason of Ban: "Powergaming and encouraging poor practices. Destroying trash piles to loot things as a security officer, which has since been taught to new players. This kind of thing isn't okay and leads to server wide issues. Bragging about it is also not a good look." Reason for Appeal: I wish to regain my ability to play as Security, being one of my favorite departments. I believe I have learnt from this experience and will make better decisions concerning powergaming in the future, namely being able to understand when my actions break the rules or make the game less enjoyable for others. I will also be more aware of things I teach to new players and how it might affect them or the community negatively.

If I am correct, those warnings and bans are all from more than a year ago and have already expired, and were for other issues rather than searching through maintenance or trash piles specifically. Either way, I still understand how they might put me in a negative light in this situation. As for my intent -- I have known about the existence of trash piles, as well as the loot that they may yield for quite some time now. If my real intention was to power game and deprive antagonists or other crew from the trash pile loot then I would have been doing this for way longer, over the other multiple Security characters that I have. Up until I have created this character, I have barely ever touched the trash piles, outside of a seldom few reasons as non-security characters. When I created my new Vaurca character, Dez, I figured that it would make sense for it to regularly scrounge through the ship's trash to find extra credits to buy k'ois with, or send back to its Hive considering that Vaurcae are usually discriminated against and their average pay is way smaller than that of other crew. The name, "maintenance contraband check" was more of an IC cover-up used to discourage people asking what exactly Dez was searching for, which was indeed mainly credits. Anything else useful it found, it would bring to the other departments in need of it, to increase productivity and just generally be helpful. Having a cadet come along and also do it with me seemed like a great opportunity for humor as well as roleplay. At the time, I OOCly justified this using the reasons I have already described: -It takes a pretty long time to do this, and going through multiple piles of trash can take a lot of time and yield essentially nothing. In short, a waste of time in most cases. -There are a lot of piles of trash on the ship, and my searches were only localized to the security maintenance section. If anybody wanted to search through garbage themselves, they would still have the entire rest of the maintenance system to look through. -I thought that it was a fairly hidden mechanic that couldn't really be abused as much as pre-NBT maintenance tunnels were, especially considering how little access to maintenance Security has nowadays. I tend to observe a good amount of rounds and I've never ever seen any type of antagonist really take any time to dig through the trash piles, assumingly because of the first reason. Although I understand now that my actions were wrong, I still stand by my claim that I do not think a ban was justified. I will say again that even though I didn't know of any note, Cyb's warning still got through to me and I stopped my conduct immediately. It doesn't take a lot to realize that if a Moderator warns you to stop doing something or you'll get banned, you should probably stop doing it at once. As you yourself said, this is the first instance in which I've ever done this and I really think that applying a ban instantly is just poor escalation and is completely unneeded.

Right, this happened during the Discord discussion. From your screenshots, we can clearly see me asking you an honest question, which you replied to. I proceeded to try and crack a joke hinting at the financial situation of Vaurca characters not having much credits, but I am sorry if you mistook this for me mocking you. That was not my intention. If you did give me the note after the Discord discussion, then the point still stands that I stopped my conduct and heeded your warning. I do not see why a ban was applied after I clearly stopped doing the offensive action, but I understand you are not not responsible for it. My views on the matter have changed after I got some sense talked into me, and I now understand this completely. If I have not made myself clear enough, I am not contesting the reason of the administrative action but the improper escalation and punishment itself. Even though I didn't explicitly know you put a note on me, I stopped doing the offending maintenance searches immediately and was still slapped with a ban.

I was not aware of any note, as I was not bwoinked or talked to in any way before the Discord discussion. So no, I was not contacted by any staff at all.

BYOND Key: Herpetophilia Staff BYOND Key: Peppermint96 Game ID: I do not think this is applicable, but correct me if I'm wrong Reason for complaint: After a discussion on the Discord server about looting trash piles in maintenance as Security, Peppermint96 issued me a security job ban. I do not think this is justified, and should at least be lowered to a warning or a note. Now, for the context. Recently, I have started doing "maintenance contraband checks" as one of my security characters, Za'Akaix'Dez Zo'ra. These consist of me going into the maintenance tunnel North-East of security and taking apart the 5 or 6 trash piles located there. This usually yields some interesting loot, anything from knives to hand teleporters as you probably know. Afterwards, I store any found weapons in the Armory and forget about them, and bring anything else I find to the departments that would be interested. I have been doing this for a respectable amount of rounds over the past week. Not at one point during this period of time was I talked to, warned or given any other notion or idea that doing this is bad or against the rules. Personally, I did not feel that breaking apart a few loot piles is power gaming considering how many of them there are on the ship, how long it takes and how rarely they are actually used by antagonists, at least from what I've seen. Moving on to the Discord conversation mentioned earlier. Yesterday, on the Aurora Discord, I mentioned that trash piles can be very strong considering some of the things you can pull out of them. To make the long story short, I was pretty much told that this is bad and that I shouldn't do this. Admittedly, I did argue and debate the ethics of searching through garbage with multiple other Discord members, but I do not think this really applies to the situation that much. Either way, after this Discord conversation, I completely stopped doing these contraband checks over the next couple of rounds and still haven't done any. I am also being accused of encouraging poor practices to other players, namely the contraband searches. For reference, I only taught this to a Security Officer named August, and a Security Cadet named Hossl Suazra. This was only done one time with August, but I did do this over multiple rounds with Suazra. If they are allowed to, I am inviting the player of Suazra to chime in and also tell their side of the story. Personally, I do not think I taught them any "poor practice" other than searching through the loot piles, which they also stopped doing after the aforementioned Discord discussion. To reiterate, I don't think this ban is justified considering that I've never been told that searching through loot piles is wrong up until the Discord debate mentioned earlier. After said debate, I immediately stopped doing this and I do not think I deserve anything more than a warning or note. Evidence/logs/etc: If you want to look at the Discord conversation, you can easily find it by searching for anything 'trash pile' related in the search bar of the server. Additional remarks: It's my first Staff Complaint so it might look a bit disjointed. Feel free to ask me questions if you need me to explain something better.

Hello, thanks for replying! I believe one of the most important differences as to how you'd play a Vaurca is how their natural work ethic contrasts with a human work environment, such as the Horizon. Born and made for specific tasks that they would likely continue doing until death, Vaurcae do not have a full concept of having a job, being hired or fired from it and so on. This is because an average Vaurca's life outside of VR can more-or-less be considered its job, especially so for Bound. Adapting to this new human work ethic may be easier for some, such as those of Athvur's brood (like my character, who will likely have a very basic understanding of human culture), and harder for others, like those who were still alive on the hive-ships when first contact was made. What remains universal is that most if not all of average Vaurcae will be unknowing in human culture to one degree or another and will have to learn to adapt to the new environment. Being heavily discriminated against certainly does not help with this and may slow or even halt their progress to getting used to their new life in the Orion Spur. I hope this answers your question!

BYOND Key: Herpetophilia Character Names: Khazarir Prruzhulkanich Bob Ali Soleymani Species you are applying to play: Vaurcae What color do you plan on making your first alien character: RGB 131, 41, 11 (Athvur unbound) Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Over the years of me playing Aurora, one species in particular stood out to me the most. Even though I originally gained whitelists for other species, Vaurca has always been on my mind. Their unique lore has long intimidated me from making a whitelist, however after a long break from SS13, I finally delved deep into the wiki pages and gained new-found confidence to finally make this whitelist. I wish to join the ranks of the many Vaurca players that have made countless rounds enjoyable and funny, as well as participate in one of the coolest species we have in the server. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: One of the most important and major differences it he way Vaurcese society functions. Vaurca are split into Hives led by Higher Queens, which are then further split into Broods which are led by Lesser Queen. These Hives survive by using different castes, or types of Vaurca. Your caste, and by extension, your life is planned out by your Hive before you are even fully developed. For a proper Hive to function, it needs multiple castes to work together: Workers; to handle most physical labor and duties, Warriors; to protect the Hive and Breeders; to lead Vaurcae as well as advise their queens and ensure the population grows. There is also a new caste of Vaurcae, Bulwarks, which are used for heavy-duty industrial work. Another major thing to remember is that Vaurcae are very new to Human, Skrell and Unathi space, and as such are commonly discriminated against and mistrusted for various reasons. Character Name: Za'Akaix'Dez Zo'ra Please provide a short backstory for this character: Hatched in 2460 shortly after the Lii'dra invasion to an Athvur hive-cell in Phoenixport, Dez had a rather rough upbringing. After completing its training as a warrior, Dez had a tough time finding a job within Phoenixport that was suitable for a Warrior. At first, it assisted with menial tasks and physical labor whilst serving as an enforcer within Athvur's virtual reality realm. Eventually it landed a position within NanoTrasen, serving as security detail for the many NT operations within the district, especially those involving the Athvur brood as the workforce. It continued this modest life, trying to seep itself in Human culture where it could, until 2462, when Einstein Engines acquired the majority of Phoenixport from NanoTrasen. With its workplace and living quarters now owned by a different company, Dez's whole hive cell was left jobless and homeless. While a majority of the other Hive Cells moved to Belle Cote, Dez's cell instead decided to move itself to Flagsdale instead due to financial issues. While attempting to find another relevant job within the slums of Flagsdale, Dez came across a basketball game -- starring the Flagsdale Hornets. Fascinated by this new, Human sport, Dez quickly gained an obsession with the Hornets and basketball as a whole. Being both an immersive, interesting look into Human culture as well as a way to train one's physical ability and teamwork, basketball became an integral part of Dez's life. Even though it eventually found more security work within Nexus Corporate Security, Dez spent most of its free time learning and training the sport in VR in its very own sub-realm, and when it could, in real life. In recent times, Dez has acquired a contract to work aboard the SCCV Horizon as security detail. Its previous experience paired with Athvur's brood being know to work well in human environments made it an obvious choice for Nexus Corporate Security, who did not hesitate to send it away. When it isn't on duty, Dez still enjoys basketball, be it in virtual reality or the holodeck, and dreams of one day becoming part of the legendary (at least in its eyes) Flagsdale Hornets. What do you like about this character? Obviously, Dez's obsession with basketball. I can foresee many interesting and funny interactions stemming from this. How would you rate your role-playing ability? 7/10, I've taken a considerable break from SS13 and as such my ability is slightly impaired. However, its rebounding and I'm confident again.

I've played with many of Playbahnosh's characters lately. They are competent in roleplay, and seem to know the game mechanics very well. In addition to this, they are pretty fun to be around OOCly. All in all, I think a command whitelist would be perfect for them and there will be no issues. +1

I played multiple rounds with Triogenix's CMO. They proved themselves to be a competent and reliable command player from what I've seen. +1

I've played with multiple of Kaizr's characters, they were all executed superbly and very enjoyable to interact with. Kaizr themselves are also a very fun person to be around and I personally have never seen any issues. I think they would make a great command player, and this application gets a solid +1 from me!