zyymurgy

Well... I also walk barefoot on gravel. I would say that walking on hot/cold metal sucks, and running barefoot on a hard surface still isn't fun. On Cataclysm:DDA, "tough feet" is a starting Perk you can take. However, this game doesn't have perks or traits. So you're going to have to standardize it, and that has implications for roleplay.

-1. Amory seems to enjoy nothing more than screaming at people. In fact, when I am noticing Amory in general_chat, it is usually because he is in the middle of a screaming argument. About 10-ish months ago I decided to take a break from ss13 entirely because I was tired of the screaming arguments and bad attitudes I saw displayed constantly. Amory and Zelm's participation in the screaming fights surrounding the implementation of Departmental Security is what drove me away from Aurora specifically. The way they would just NOT stop, even when told directly to. The way the arguments would continue for literal hours. And now it's coming back because Departmental Sec is being worked on again, and the screaming fights in that thread are threatening to spill into general_chat again. Recently Amory and I had a fight because he was baiting someone in general_chat, and I tried to make a joke to defuse the situation. He came into my DMs to yell at me very harshly for interfering with his baiting this person. He told me, paraphrased, "I know when the admins give out strikes. I was trying to get him to say something that would get them struck. I was not in danger of being struck because I know when admins give strikes." This is unacceptable behavior from a normal user; if a moderator did this, I would be very very very concerned. In addition, Amory is allergic to criticism. What I mean by this is, he just doesn't believe it. He refuses to believe it. And he gets mad if you insist on it. Every time I have tried to criticize his development work, he had said things like "It doesn't look like a problem to me" and "This is fine" no matter how clearly or concisely I try to explain. Basically telling me, and others, that we are wrong for thinking there is something that could be changed for the better in his work. He has said he literally cannot have fun with ss13 unless his sprites are put into the game. This is concerning to me because it shows he is working on Aurora for himself, not for the community, and in fact, he disregards the community's opinions. When someone suggests how he could improve his work, he ignores them - or yells at them. Recently criticism of his work was brought up in general_chat and he did these behaviors to more than just myself, so I know it's not just a "me" problem. Amory does not have the temperament to moderate Aurora, or any server.

Compare to the colors that are already present on station. I prefer the vivid and vibrant coloration that the station already has.

My major criticism of your latest work regarding the Command resprite is that you want to go for very desaturated colors, and this also is an example. I would prefer to see the colorful items on the station remain colorful in most cases.

Meowy is someone who clearly genuinely cares about Tajara. I think this is evident to everyone who plays with him. I would fully and completely trust his judgement about this species and where to take it. I have a Taj whitelist but I have not played one for a long time because I do not really connect with the species' current themeing. I was wondering what the stance going forward would be about Taj who really do not want to be involved in the conflict? I have a desire to play a simple Taj, from a farming community, but I don't have the desire to keep up with a three-faction civil war where every side is the bad guy, and which sides find what the most morally objectionable, etc. I find their politics confusing, and a little bit hard to decipher. How do you feel about Taj who want to be involved with the species, homeworld and lore, but not with the whole war and politics theme that pervades the species? I've seen "apolitical" Tajaran criticized, and I don't want to just play a kitty - but I really cannot wrap my head around what's going on with their lore right now.

I said this in discord but I'll say it here. Either make them walkable or place them out of my fuckin' way or else I'm going to break them or move them ICly every round until it's fixed. I don't want some new objects placed directly in my walking path. Do not remove standing room in the medbay lobby. Period. It's already congested enough every time antag shit happens. Gum is a great RP enhancement but if it's in my way, I'm going to hate it.

So I'm not sure why we're removing color-coding to uniforms but I would really appreciate a version that is in Cargo and Mining's colors, and maybe one that is not quite so... lifelessly unsaturated brown and greenish? The station is colorful on purpose. I really do not like this trend of trying to make everything desaturated and brown or tan.

I agree with pretty much everything said here, and Resi brings up some really good points about negative reinforcement vs positive. I don't want to make another huge post about it, but I will say that the server culture of screaming at each other in dsay and OOC, and ahelping or making player complaints when you're angry, is something I do not enjoy. But right now I see that being the only form of real feedback available to players, aside from self-created "feedback" threads. And not everybody has made, or wants to make one of those. So many people find the forums irrelevant, and new players usually don't even discover them for a while. The reason I think it's so important to have an anonymous way of giving feedback or criticism is because this server encourages cliqueing, and everybody knows it. And if you speak unfavorably to or about someone in one of these cliques, the whole clique finds out. This can cause unintended ripples. When you just want to say "hey dude, I think next time it would be better if you xyz as that antag" it can feel like approaching the entire clique at once - because you know that one person will report back. I am at the point where I actively avoid getting involved in antagonist stuff on-station. It makes people angry like 80% of the time, and I know I don't like it when I'm randomly killed or taken hostage with little preamble, and little consequent RP. There are good antag rounds, I have played in them! But the majority of the time when shit starts going wrong I do my best to avoid it as strongly as possible, even if that means shutting myself into a locked room with 2 or 3 other people who also are trying to just not get mixed the fuck up with that shit. And this is realistic! But it also makes antag rounds kind of boring. Sheltering in place during a workplace shooting incident is only fun to RP the first few times, after that it can get kind of old. And needless to say I do not play as an antagonist. The reasons mentioned above by others hit it right dead center. I am afraid of being screamed at. I am afraid of doing it wrong, with no guidance, and no mentor to set a good model for me to follow. And I do not feel that I could make a round interesting for the rest of the players, because I don't know the mechanics very well and I know that for most if I tried to go in RP heavy I'd be criticized as a boring peace-antag, or robusted instantly - and then screamed at. There is so much criticism and teasing and screaming in OOC, DSAY, and the discord. It makes it really hard to enjoy playing sometimes.

Holy shit that's a good idea for mini-events. Why isn't that done regularly anyways?

Khaing seems like a legit dude. I couldn't tell that he was a 'new' character because he seemed to be properly in place in the setting; functioned as expected as if there was already some experience at it. No complaints, in fact: +1

If we're giving our simple personal opinions on Schev as a person, then I have to regrettably state my opinion is the opposite of Satins's. I would feel very uncomfortable with Schev on the team. I do not feel Schev is an approachable, friendly, or even tolerant person. I find them often abrasive, and very hard to speak with. In fact I have had to have Schev blocked for literal months because he would try to bait me in public. I avoid Schev as much as possible. If Schev were on the IPC lore team, I would actively seek someone else to approach about my concerns and issues, because I am not comfortable talking to Schev in most situations.

This is exactly what I said I don't want. I'm not going to ahelp just because I'm mad. I'm not going to make a player complaint just because I feel like the antag fucked up. I want a system where I can casually +1 or -1 someone's performance on station without making it a big personal thing. I don't want to immediately jump to the "tell the teacher" option when I feel someone didn't do well; I just want to be able to give anonymous feedback and have it taken into account, both positive and negative. And the current system, which is "ahelp" or "scream in OOC" or "find them on Discord", is not a satisfactory one to me personally.

So then what is supposed to be done about it? I don't want to get people banned. I want to be able to provide feedback to good players and incentivize good play, as a player, instead of screaming in DSAY to literally 0 effect when I'm unhappy. There's currently a system for providing feedback, good or bad, that consists of "scream in OOC at the player when the round ends" or "find them on discord and corner them in PMs". That's a bad system.

He's right and he should say it. Antagonists are on the station for one purpose: to make the episode of the show entertaining. SS13 is a dramatic, collaborative creative writing game facilitated by an engine that allows you to have an avatar that takes damage and can attack. It's not the other way around for me; it's not a game where you're trying to win by clicking on the other player to damage them, where you can emote occasionally for fun if you feel like it. SS13, in an HRP server, is about experiencing the story that other people are trying to tell, and adding your own input to help tell that story. It's not something competitive; for me, you should be working TOGETHER with the antag at all times OOCly, even if you are ICly enemies. Episodes of sci-fi TV shows that are full of suspense and tension are pretty much universally agreed to be cool. A lot of the antag modes on station are set up perfectly for this type of thing. You have your monster of the day. You have your pool of unwilling victims. You put the two together and you hope that magic happens. Unfortunately so often the magic just isn't there because your antagonist player wants to win, not to play their role as this episode's villain. Imagine if Michael Myers just like, bombed that chick's house instead of chasing her around for two hours and then dying. It's easy to complain about this but it's hard to say what should be done about it, though. I jokingly suggested something like a karma system and was hit with a hard "no" when this came up in discord. So how is it supposed to be moderated? I legitimately would like to see a rating or ranking system for antags, where if you get enough -1 you get locked out of that role for a couple days, and if you get enough +1 you might unlock some more OP gear to use in your storytelling. Antags that tell a good story should be rewarded, and antags that fail to prioritize the entire server's enjoyment of the round should be guided toward a more constructive style of play. I think it might help with some of the anger and frustration that gets seen in OOC and DSAY as well to have a system where you can actually provide feedback on the antag's performance and have it matter. I don't want to get anybody in trouble, so when there's a bad antagonist, I try to just get over it; I'm not typically going to ahelp because I'm buttmad. However I also don't want to be salty in DSAY or OOC after the round because that also doesn't help anybody! But when you don't know who the antag is, you feel like they fucked you over, and you don't want to ahelp or make a player complaint -- what are you supposed to do in order to give feedback on the round?! How can you tell someone who you feel didn't do a good job, something like that calmly and anonymously without it turning into a shitfest? There is no system for giving feedback or even incentivizing "good" play. I really wish there was though.

"Man, fuck Moghes" is always an interesting character arc and I am usually interested to see where people go with it - especially female Unathi. Picking 'infertile female' puts you just like a hair above guwan pretty much, and not many people choose to play out the resulting shame and ostracism that would come with. +1 since I'm confident you can handle these themes and I wanna see where you go with it. Lizard gang, we run this station.

These are really good. I like the color and shading, they're very vivid and seem to pop. Bomber jacket looks great, and the military jackets are very wearable.

+1 Great player, always good to hang out with. I've always had good experiences with him both on station and off. I don't know much about Autakh but for Unathi, being exiled is a pretty big deal. The degree of larceny would probably be pretty huge to be exiled and have your arm cut off. I would consider having the theft angle be made more clear; it would require a pretty dire crime to be exiled unless he was already on thin ice with his clan, I feel. However being exiled and found by the Autakh seems to be a pretty reasonable storyline for a Moghean. A traditionally raised Hegemony Unathi would probably require a lot of time and tolerance to come around to their way of life though, so this angle would be good to expand on. I'm pretty confident you could play this story well on station.

It would be fun to have dishes in the microwave take a certain amount of time. To make it more like a microwave IRL you could include the necessity to program the time it will cook for. So if you set something to cook for too long and walk away without checking it, it could burn and make your microwave dirty. Buuut that sounds like your "unless I wanted to xyz" statements, which seems to imply it would be a hassle and a half ? So just an idea more suitable for a total overhaul of the system... I like this very, very much.

Bruh just whitelist it, I have no idea why people would want to remove the AI when whitelisting it would solve a lot of problems. Just make it an easy to get whitelist. Like a step one whitelist. Like a "prove you know how to use the forums and click buttons on the station" whitelist.

I can't say how happy I am for the kitchen to get some updoots. Breaking vs Dirtying: A microwave should be broken by putting stuff like metal utensils into it, and not much else. Being dirtied to me means that your food exploded in there, so anything with liquid in it is fair game to make it dirty IMO. Burned mess should stick around for if you actually burn your food, but I think adding a "failed dish" that gives you a random low number of toxins would be cute too as a cooking fail-state. A game I like, Rune Factory, usually includes Failed Dish and Super Failed Dish as the fail-states for their cooking mini game. It's important for me, from a game design perspective, that fail-states include clues as to what you did wrong, so separating Burned Mess and Failed Dish into two different things would give more feedback to the player about what they did wrong to get there. I would love to have an "abort" button for the microwave that just pops the door open and stops cooking, since microwaves have that IRL. It depends on how "IRLish" you want to make them, though. I don't think failed meals should break the microwave. I think it should be able to be dirtied and cleaned more easily, though. Having a bottle of cleaner and a rag in the kitchen would be really, really nice as well. (It would be nice if you could use the dry rag or some soap to clean it too, if you can't already. I always just call for a bottle of cleaner.) I do think you should add the ability to put inappropriate items into the microwave like forks and spoons and break the machine that way though... both as a fail-state for new players discovering the limitations of their equipment, and for LOL RP or sabotage. Yes, you absolutely should care this much about the microwave, since its one of the chef's most important tools. (I personally would like to see it changed from a microwave to a more futuristic type of cooking device, too, since it seems to do a lot that microwaves don't do. Maybe a Matter Reconstitutor or a Food-o-Tron. Or maybe an Easy-Bake.) The UI stuff you've got going on looks absolutely great and it's just the right step forward for the kitchen. The idea of having food start to smoke as a warning that it's going badly is great, but I don't think it's 100% vital as an addition. I'm okay with it being a pass/fail type of thing once you put your food in. Your roast being ruined in front of people is a vital part of kitchen gameplay, I feel. (I also think it's kinda lame that the map got adjusted so people can't see directly into the kitchen as well any more. I want it to be like a pizzaria where I'm tossing the dough right in front of them, you know? Not your area of expertise but I gotta mention it.) If you wanted something like a warning that your recipe is fucking up so you have time to abort, you could make it like this: If you examine the microwave, it's like the oven, you can see how the item inside is cooking. And if it's not making good food, you get a descriptor like "the food is bubbling strangely" or similar? So that it simulates the experience of peeking into the microwave window as it's cooking and watching your food mutate.

Strong -1. From what I've seen in the discord there is a lot about the current state of IPCs you personally want to change or see removed. You mentioned "culling" whitelists more than once, as a necessity. To me, it seems like you are interested in reshaping the way people play IPCs to *your* liking, and not anyone else's. You don't seem to consider the way people play IPCs right now to be of much value or worth. As someone who plays IPCs and enjoys it, based on the arguments you have made in Discord, I am concerned that if you took over you would attempt to force changes that would retcon my characters and/or make them no longer viable to play. I do not think that you would be willing to work with people in order to try to make that not happen -- since you already mentioned "culling" was "needed".

I would trust Snake with my life. Not only is he generally good to RP with, he's a very solid guy OOC. I would feel comfortable with him in charge of Security. I have known in him command roles on other servers and he has been able to play a good leader before who was able to control some very unruly subordinates. I feel like he would be able to lead and manage the sometimes unpredictable ISD without drama.

This is bootyshorts-pajamas with a balaclava. I have to say it does not exactly scream "threatening cyberninja".

Images that tiny should look like the paintings in minecraft, not a fuzzed out blur, in my opinion. The style of the hand-made posters is fine, just the content is silly and doesn't fit in.

Since I was involved in this round and strongly recommended Nat and Brainos back it down to an IR rather than commit canonical revenge-murder, I think I maybe should post? I came in about an hour into the round, as Cazimi. Since I see that MartyMcFly only has three forum posts, and I do not recall seeing Ephemer around before this, I feel like it might not be rude to explain a couple things. Extended rounds are canonical, and are expected to play out as a normal, everyday shift aboard the Aurora. Any wacky, weird thing you do, is happening for real, and is being considered more harshly than actions during Antag or Event rounds. Your behavior during Extended rounds is supposed to be who your character really genuinely is, with no ulterior motivation. As such, characters who do weird things on Extended rounds are viewed under the lens of, "why would this weird guy be employed by NanoTrasen?" Aurora's setting is intended to be grounded, and believable, if not always "realistic". You should be able to suspend your disbelief about what's happening in the story, and to immerse yourself in the roleplay that's going on. This is what makes it High Roleplay in my opinion, as opposed to Low Roleplay, where you do not have very much of a connection to your character as they are just a video game avatar, and the station and players around you are just something to destroy and click on. So this brings me back around to the Extended round in question. I believe the fundamental problem here with Ephemer is: "Why is this weird, violent old dude working for NanoTrasen? Especially after he cracked somebody's skull for real?" The role of Priest on the station can be very broadly defined, but generally you're going to be a leader or a mentor type of figure who can give some emotional support during times of crisis. It's a very heavy roleplay focused role. One would not typically expect a holy person who is representative of their faith, on a research station, to behave violently. These are my very general criticisms of Ephemer as a character. He's out of place in a High Roleplay setting, as a violent "priest" of an unspecified religion. I have trouble believing this man would be hired by NanoTrasen, especially after the round we all shared that is the subject of this player complaint. Now, I'd like to move to address a couple things more specific to this incident rather than my criticism of the character played. It was my intervention with Nat and Preston that led to the writing of the IR canonically, because otherwise Preston was going to kill Ephemer. I was about 90% sure that when he left and went quiet, he was getting ready to have to shelf or delete his character slot in order to do something. Because Extended rounds are canon, if Ephemer had killed Nat, it would have been permanent unless someone could clone her (which is bad in canon), unless the admins said it was alright to void. So I'm pretty sure Preston was going to try and do something, as security had not. It was at this point I reached out to Borya's HOP to beg him to come do something and help us with an Incident Report, and I radio'd for Preston to come join us in filing it out. Luckily this calmed the situation down and we were able to sit together and try to salvage the rest of the round. As we were sitting together, we were all upset by the way the round had gone -- yes, OOCly. We were OOCly unhappy with MartyMcFly's behavior, because it put characters in canonical danger during a round that was supposed to be, and that we had hoped would be, relaxing. And this I think is something that MartyMcFly does not understand. People do not have to be ERPing with each other to form deep connections through roleplay. My character cares about Preston and Natalie because they have been kind to my character, and when I am in the mindset of my character, they are my friends and I care about them. (And also we're total buds OOC, because of the way we met IC.) We were sitting in our lobby and heard that Ephemer had been banned from sparring when he came in and tried to order boxing gloves so he could continue "sparring" without pulling punches, effectively coming into our department to gloat that he had gotten away with some pretty serious violence, and to indicate that he was planning on doing more. And then he went away to go do more violence, stabbing his "buddy" in the eye with a screwdriver. On a canonical round that serious players take as something that's being added to the history and development of the character. I went to cryo because of IC reasons but as a ghost I watched him follow Natalie and call her a cunt when she just wanted him to leave her alone. I feel this is some pretty bad OOC behavior becoming an IC issue. Since MartyMcFly does not participate with the roleplay on station in a deeper level, he seems to see no issue in bringing his OOC frustration into IC, in order to harass somebody who just wants to be left alone. In stating that he never pulls punches, he has acknowledged that he ignores a pretty important game mechanic in order to continue to do serious harm to other players' characters across multiple rounds, despite his "gimmick" being some kind of fighting priest. In doing this "gimmick" on a canon round, and then not seeing the seriousness of the situation - almost player-killing somebody for real during RP - it shows to me that this player is perhaps from a more Moderate Roleplay type of setting, and has not been able to fully immerse yet. "It's just a game, bro. I didn't hurt you, I just hurt your character!" Permanently, on a canonical round, leading to both IC medical history for Nat and OOC frustration for everyone involved. I can explain any of these points more deeply if asked, but I feel this pretty clearly explains my issue with Ephemer. I held off posting because I didn't want to dogpile on the thread before MartyMcFly had a chance to post, but now that he has, I do not believe that he understands the issues we have, and the reason we made the complaint. I hope this post makes some sense and explains some things.