We Should Have a Talk of the Current State of Aurora

[Susan]

If anything, the responses to this topic are evidence that there are complaints and reservations. The question that needs to be asked are these complaints Valkrae said he left over actually worthwhile? When it comes to cliques and favoritism, as well as unwillingness to cooperate with new players, perhaps. But you see another side of the coin in this topic too: complaining about admins doing their job. Let antags murder SSD players? Really? Let griefers run free? The fact of life is not everyone is going to be happy with everything, but you have to discern worthwhile complaints from people who are complaining about something that is actually in line with server standards.

The fact that people are even agreeing with letting griefers run wild and SSDs get murderstripped is ridiculous, and I expected something different. I don't think those complaints are founded in reality, nor do I think complaints about lore stifling roleplay or SoP 'omg im arrested so un fun its a game i should have fun' have any substance. I don't dislike Conservan, but I think the issues he has aren't issues at all, and are positives. Fast grief response is good. Respecting SSD players, who you can neither roleplay with or have a challenge by wantonly murdering them, is good. I fail to see how admins doing their job could even be interpreted as an issue. The point to be made is there is always a cacophony of people complaining, it was like that on Bay, but you need to figure out if the stuff they're complaining about is even deserving of acknowledgement.

So people leave because they can't eat the SSD detective. Why should we care? New blood is the life of the server, sure, but do you really want to start sacrificing what makes Aurora Aurora just to make everyone happy? You can't do that; what makes Aurora Aurora isn't cliques or favoritism or 'muh catbeasts', it is an atmospheric environment with, in my opinion, relatively well-written lore and sensible restrictions that bring it more in line with an immersive experience. Why should we let the bald griefer run around so he can kill everyone? Why should we let antags take the easy card out and kill SSDs? Why should we let characters who break the law in egregious ways run free? Just so we can keep our population in the 50s and 60s? People may have left, but the server doesn't seem to have truly suffered for it. And if someone really wants to leave because they got arrested for knocking a guy's teeth out, then I don't think struggling to retain them is worthwhile.

[Jakers457]

We seemed to have moved away from the main topic that was brought up. But this is the issue right here, you ask what do we want exactly?

What do I want particularly is that threads like this don't turn into a massive shit fest where everyone is bickering and arguing, completely forgetting about what the thread was about in the first place. And you say what have we done to remedy the situation? Hartburry comes to you with a thread, highlighting his concerns, his complaints and does it in a completely reasonable manner. There is no point going to one man, be that your door is always open Skull, when anything brought into light for the community results in this.

How are we supposed to fix anything when we insist on causing arguments or being hostile to any critique. I admit there was one thread where I was pretty pissy and defensive, but that was mainly on how I found a particular member get treated. I mean, look at how this thread develops, it is a prime fucking example. You say to us 'why leave us in our hour of need' and 'why not help remedy the situation.' And this is why, it seems to be easier to ignore the problem or slink away compared to the impending mess that comes with even attempting to speak.

I've kind of hijacked Hart's thread with my issues as we all have it seems. But Skull, you now know my issues, issues I know one other member leaving for and you also know Hartburry's concerns, have at it.

[Skull132]

There is no point going to one man, be that your door is always open Skull, when anything brought into light for the community results in this.

 

This has only started happening recently. Before the start of this week, threads like this didn't exist. I'm fine with either, but what irks me is that people bottle themselves up, don't talk to anyone anywhere, and then toss their hat in. This is feedback. Feedback that hasn't existed for the past 4 months. Not that it matters now, we're here, and I do love the fact that this is an actual thread that I can mull over, and nod my head, planning future movement and actions.

 

...have at it.

 

My approach of mirroring the mentality of, "laissez-faire" is over. It was a fun thing to do, as it allowed me to focus on code and not actually managing personnel, but. It is obvious that the system has flaws. Cute ones, ones that you wouldn't really spot on paper. But, give me a day. Perhaps two, maybe even thirty. We'll see where this little adventure takes us.

Let's start from here, shall we? Everyone here, adjust your fire, and get off of the trend of calling each other shit. Please, get constructive.

[Farcry11]

but what I hate most of all are the people who leave and then shit on the server when they did nothing to improve the situation.

you had a chance to try and impact the things you dislike and you chose not to. The point of a community is to work together to create an atmosphere. Giving up on that doesn't help.

 

Yeah, valid points, except:

People DID try to change things. I tried to change things. All we got was complaints and moaning, aggression, and alienation.

We tried to impact the things we didn't like. We didn't choose to fail- what we did choose to do was quit when it was clear that change was not wanted.

And you say that, as a community, we're trying to cultivate a certain atmosphere. All I've seen is the cultivation of an atmosphere that is hostile, restrictive, and festering. And there's a reason that the atmosphere has been cultivated to be this way: players that negatively effect the atmosphere have become deeply engrained in the community.

Players that whine and complain to admins and in OOC/LOOC whenever they are wronged.

Players that think that just because they made a super special character who's 7 feet tall with floor length neon hair, they get to be a shit to others.

Players that come in, needlessly tear out and replace massive chunks of lore and shove it down people's throats, and complain loudly whenever they receive criticism for this.

Players that think that role playing isn't about having fun, it's about being serious and strict and following the lore and rules to the letter.

Players that forget that this is just a game that everyone is trying to enjoy- not their personal, stable RP chatroom.

Players that refuse to try new things.

Hate me, and the rest of those that jumped ship, if you want. But don't say we didn't try. We just didn't succeed- and who would want to stay in a toxic place that you couldn't change?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I've been trying to change things for a long while now. It's gotten reactions in the form of hostility, anger, and being called a headache because I'm stubborn about these things.

Honestly for a long while I was completely ready to throw in the towel, because in the grand scheme of things this is a videogame that I have no desire to let impact my life in a negative way.

Maybe in my campaign to improve things I've come across like a hardheaded jerkface, and I'm going to work on that. But for everything else - the cliques, the hostility to new players, the rigid enforcement of lore and SoP over IC fun, the only way to truely fix this issue is to have those involved ask themselves

"Will I impact their fun?"

"Will it really ruin the round to tell them what they did was wrong and try to work with them instead of locking them away and throwing away the key?"

Or shorten it to:

"Is this how I want to represent Aurora?"

[Cassie]

Because this thread is rambly and makes no fecking sense.

You want people to be nicer to new people?

Great, I can totally live with that.

Then start being nicer to new people, because you're doing fuck all just milling around here.

 

Tenenza, here's the thing. Yes, players could be more friendly to each other. Here's the thing, there's within administration and development who have this problem too, there's people who aren't reading this problem or shrug and don't think it's them who are part of this too. And so on.

What this topic is actually implying is that:

1. The cliques and favouritism need to be broken up by the actual managers of the community because that's their job. A structure of an RP server isn't just to have an admin to ban griefers and deal with rule breakers and some people to add lore and sprites, you need RP managers as well.

1a) An example of how this can be done is admins minimize the amount of exclusive events (events that mostly only involve people in the security and heads sector, and maybe just 1-2 people on the side) and start making events that include most of the station.

Events don't need to include violence that causes death. For example, the prison event run a few weeks ago was really good because it helped a lot of people get to know each other. It was a tiny bit clusterfuckish, some people stuck in their regular groups, but it somewhat forced people to interact with each other. From there, it had OOC benefits because people then began to interact more with the people they saw in said events.

Running on extended is fine sometimes especially for in-betweens, but admins on occasion (more frequently) should try to get a creative person on their team to have this done (which I am aware this is in the process of doing).

1b) I've always considered making a "Who did I meet today" topic, an interesting topic talking about the people you come across in SS13, maybe a spin-off of "Humans of New York" thing. I usually aim to interact with 2-5 new people in depth per day, I even keep logs of stuff that happens so I can memorize personalities and such.

 

Oh, and you want Reddit to like us?

What the hell does that even mean.

Reddit is like a big group of people who keep talking and never agree about anything.

They don't like any server. At all.

 

I want you to sit down and consider this:

Who is reddit populated by? Where do all these redditors who have played Aurora come from? Secondly, what is your reason for dismissal for a significant portion of a very varied playerbase that just happens to also use this social media website to communicate. What's next? "You want Tumblr to like us?", "You want facebook to like us?".

Are all these reddits misplaced LRP'ers, or griefers and people who simply want to rouse you up for no good reason? Because if that's you think it's a very defensive way of being in denial - imagining your entire opposition as incompetent and stupid non-RP'ing baldies to dismiss their opinion.

Because for note, there's a handful top notch RP'ers I know that have critiqued your server on there, I recognize them from servers I've been on. Just so you get perspective here, some are actually the same and sometimes better at playing than people we've got here (who I actually think here, are pretty decent RP'ers most of the time) because they've been RP'ing for years. Which is what is actually the irony at kicking down at reddit is counter productive.

They've been weary of other HRP servers that have fucked up terribly like Hypatia and BestRP, some of the anger may have transferred from that - but their complaints are often legit, so there's that. Also, people here aren't mentioning reddit because they want to asskiss reddit, they're mentioning reddit because the problem is so obvious and wide-spread it is even being discussed on reddit.

Cliques and Favortism, yeah, those are problems, but like, half the people who have posted in this thread are in them.

 

Cliques and Favortism, yeah, those are problems, but like, half the people who have posted in this thread are in them.

You see, if I were a mod/admin of any server, I'd be more concerned at my server having cliques (which are basically the slow, cold seppuku of any RP environment) than "Hah, some of these people are in a clique, so this isn't an issue to be sorted out by me!"

22 year old doctors, those a bit of an issue. Is it an issue that should be dealt with ICly? Really, I'm coming to the conclusion that it's probably not. Yeah, I've bitched to people about ages whatnot, and you know, and that was a stupid. Because honestly, it's not that big of a freaking deal that It needs to be dealt with during the round.

You know, I agree with you on that you don't need to have this dealt with during the round, not sure if anyone on topic actually mentioned that.

Anyway, since nobody else is mentioning this, I'm going to take the liberty of saying it: 22 year old doctors and snowflakes in huge quantities on a server is a sign of a systematic issue.

When people creates one of these, it's for a purpose. Like one or more of the following:

1. To become noticed and make their character feel special so they will be liked, and more situations revolving RP will happen to them.

2. 20-something works more for romances, but people need to add more skillsets to them, for reason 1. So they can attain said romance.

3. Because it's a self-insert of their actual self and they don't realize the skillset should match their character.

1 & 2 specially are caused by existing problems mostly, and can be reduced.

 

New blood is the life of the server, sure, but do you really want to start sacrificing what makes Aurora Aurora just to make everyone happy?

 

Sue, I ask you to look at Hypatia. Look at their forums. Look in the general topics specifically, you'll see a few threads there. Then jump into their server and observe, I want you to see how shit their general product of RP is.

What happened? Hypatia used to be the best RP server on the hub. Hypatia's administration was like yourself Sue, and Hypatia had the exact same problems as Aurora, they didn't bend for no one and they had a oldie playerbase that was on their side. They didn't really care about alienating the new members and doing nothing about it, or allowing the old to tramp over the incoming.

You know what happened? Their old players got caught up with life and work, they left. Admins left. Mods left. Lore and dev team left. They have a huge ton of new people now, these new people don't know how to RP (and don't care about the state of RP on the server as a result so they stay) and the players that knew how to RP that were new don't want to touch the server with a barge pole because of their experiences there.

Secondly, you've got to use your head. I kind of get that this server doesn't like braindead killing due to the permadeath situation, but why don't you think smart enough for your mind to work like this:

"Right, so they're asking if they can allow griefers to be arrested, and for braindeads to be killed."

"I don't think we should allow that, but it might be a sign that the antag and security roles are a bit dead and we need to jazz them up."

"Perhaps we can run a fun event thing tomorrow, give a traitor a custom objective for them to RP out. We could also have someone RP something for security to chase over. Heck, let's even give something to the science, civilian, and mining department next week."

Secondly, I don't think people meant "Let the griefer run free", they meant "Let the griefer provide a source of action (obviously keeping in mind admins will prevent deaths) until they are in the brig cell." but obviously even this wouldn't be needed if the above example in the previous paragraph I mentioned was done.

 

I don't think those complaints are founded in reality, nor do I think complaints about lore stifling roleplay or SoP 'omg im arrested so un fun its a game i should have fun' have any substance.

Tell me Susan, is the opinion of a lorewriter or the people who are playing under the lore carry more substance? Be honest here.

Secondly, enough hyperbole with the arrest thing. I personally don't mind being arrested, I just find it weird how the procedures of how people get arrested can be sometimes.

 

You can't do that; what makes Aurora Aurora isn't cliques or favoritism or 'muh catbeasts', it is an atmospheric environment with, in my opinion, relatively well-written lore and sensible restrictions that bring it more in line with an immersive experience.

So just immersion on its own without mechanics that ensure someone has a good time?

http://secondlife.com/

Lastly, don't let me bring your character as an example into this Susan. You wouldn't want me to.

[Conservatron]

I think a major issue is that we have two distinct groups of people who populate this server. On one hand, we have the serious RPers who want to do their thing and thats it, sometimes its called 'chair rp' and its totally fine. On the other hand, we have the people who support antags and want more action on the game. Both are equally valid opinions, but the fact is they're basically polar opposites. We have players who refuse to log in for nuke rounds, and have players who switch off when extended get selected. I think we run into problems when trying to appease both groups.

Not to say I dislike the direction the server has gone in, I've been a part of it since before the Apollo switch and stayed with Aurora because I liked this group better. I do like the changes made to antag requirements, with the reduction in the focus of murder and torture. However, I think we need to make a solid decision as for what kind of server we are going to be moving forward. Are we going to be a primarily extended server with some very light antaging or something closer to bay with a somewhat higher standard of roleplay.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe both groups can coexist and the server can prosper, but I just think its going to lead to people getting upset when they get targeted by antags, and the more action oriented players getting bored when its extended for the 3rd time today.

I haven't had time to fully read cassie's post, but will do it now

[Susan]

All I'm going to say, Cassie, is while you have a point with Hypatia perhaps, I also have experienced the steady decline of a server from the other side of the perspective. Baystation12 used to be a really good server a long time ago, and it's where I started my SS13 life. Way back in 2012 I played there daily and had lots of positive experiences. Whereas stubbornness led to Hypatia being overrun, Baystation was an entirely different thing. Similar to what I'm witnessing here, Baystation's playerbase of amicable roleplayers was washed away by a grey tide of new blood, and the administration wanted to keep their population up so they totally destroyed what Baystation used to be and bent over backwards to accomodate the new players, which caused many of the people I knew for a long time to leave. Drew, Rebel, Yinadele, Learnosaurus Rex, the list goes on.

Baystation's administrative policies shifted to where they are today, some sort of antag-worshipping medium roleplay heaven and more than two thirds of the place is fresh blood. I left Baystation after trying my damndest to stop that from happening and butting heads with admin staff to the point where I just got tired of the back and forth. I don't want to see that happen here. New people may be important, but old people are equally as important, because without them the server does not have any foundation. I'm not suggesting utter stagnation but I don't want us to take a leaf out of Baystation's book and start letting people do whatever nonsensical bullshit they want.

There needs to be a balance between the two, and in all honesty I don't think changing lore or putting in ridiculously low brig times are a compromise fair for the other half. The lore is a guideline; people say it's restrictive, but how? It outlines how the different species interact? You can't be a Space American? How is it unfairly restrictive, by not allowing aliens to be all heads? How is SoP awful? By disallowing anyone but the captain from authorizing AI law changes? By outlining punishments for lawbreakers? This isn't just about having a good time. Your right to have a good time ends where someone else's begins. Aurora has problems, but shedding our foundation to keep the fresh, nomadic grey tide from tapering out isn't the way to go about it either.

[EvilBrage]

I'll make a few observations here:

 

2. I personally don't see the need to go out of my way to accommodate newer players, but if they're clearly trying to fit into the server, I'll definitely help out because I'm cool like that. You'll be surprised how friendly you'll be perceived to be if you just answer a question without citing some in-joke, or asking how they don't know it, or telling them something is wrong with their character or asking 'why' in an indignant manner. That said, we don't have a player count problem; we're to the point where "dead hour" is almost a thing of the past.
    
    
   
4. Without conflict, there is no story. Without a story, there is no RP. Without RP, might as well be like the other servers. There's a little segment of extreme disdain I hold for people who are incapable of RPing with the thought that there could be an antagonist out there, as if this somehow ruins their game. If I wanted to calmly immerse myself in a work environment with quirky and strange characters to interact with, I would turn off my computer and go to work.
    
    
   
6. People like to have fun. You know why real contraband was added? Because it's not fun to go to jail for carrying lipstick around, and at the risk of finger-pointing, you tend to be very arrest-happy when you're in security, Sue. Are you personally making sure that those players are having fun? It's possible for them to have fun, even while being brigged, but that means you're going to have to put some effort into it. People who cannot do this are better off playing somewhere else. It's not just the point behind antag roles, it's the point behind playing games with more than one person to begin with.
    
    
   
8. Involve people. If you involve others in what you're doing, then they'll love you for it, and just maybe you can help them better their play-style along the way.

 

No amount of rule changing will solve these issues. No amount of lore restructuring (which, mind you, I know literally next to nothing about to begin with) will do anything. What needs to change is the collective player mindset towards new individuals - rather than looking at their potential for grief, why not look at potential for growth? I'm aware this all sounds very strange coming from me, but the only thing I would honestly change is punishing players and characters who treat newer players like something sub-human, because that's what will ultimately push them away. Yes, you think it's cute to stick an electropack on them. Yes, you think throwing them in their brig cell naked is hilarious. Truth is, you're isolating a potentially good player for a few giggles. And the sad truth is, no one is doing anything about it.

[Cassie]

I think a major issue is that we have two distinct groups of people who populate this server. On one hand, we have the serious RPers who want to do their thing and thats it, sometimes its called 'chair rp' and its totally fine. On the other hand, we have the people who support antags and want more action on the game. Both are equally valid opinions, but the fact is they're basically polar opposites.

 

Actually, such a dichtomy doesn't exist. I very much enjoy "chair rp", but I am also up for diverse types of RP too. I like extended and sometimes I don't mind doing just extended, I also like different round types. I don't support ganking but I don't like a non-threatening evil villain, SS13 is just a bit like that on this server sometimes. Especially if you're just stepping in, you don't know who the fuck these re-occuring villains (IE: Nuke ops, for example) are, and even if you do your IC character will not, unless they're a target or something. A nuke ops round is often an extended round with bullshit being said over the radio for anyone not involved.

I don't personally mind being knocked out of the round with death if the event was well-roleplayed (unlike times where I've had my character thrown in the perma with no RP, or left to die in the shuttle because security somehow overlooked their prisoner gasping for air.)

I consider myself a very diverse player, I play characters of all temperaments and types. I don't see how these two things need to be separate all the time, I don't see how action can't be RP'ed, and I don't have a problem with non-action RP taking presidence sometimes.

The kind of people who prefer chair RP all the time are those who:

1. Have their own established RP friends who they run off to in the beginning of the round to lock themselves in a room somewhere, doesn't interact with anyone else so they can continue RP'ing about their personal life drama. (Which is fine until it becomes 80% of the playerbase as everyone starts to do this and therefore encourages more cliques to form.)

2. Are playing security roles and therefore possibly see more action than let's say, the average chaplain.

Not everyone fits that criteria, and therefore not everyone will be satisfied because not everyone plays sec, and not everyone here knows everyone. That creates a problem.

I don't have a lot of interest in security and head roles (used to play them a lot back in the day) but I really like civillian roles, which tend to be hit by this kind of problem the most.

 

Baystation's playerbase of amicable roleplayers was washed away by a grey tide of new blood, and the administration wanted to keep their population up so they totally destroyed what Baystation used to be and bent over backwards to accomodate the new players, which caused many of the people I knew for a long time to leave. Drew, Rebel, Yinadele, Learnosaurus Rex, the list goes on.

 

I don't know what the old players were like. I don't know what the new players are like. I don't know what Bay13 is like, and until I do I'm not entirely sure if the thing you mentioned is good or bad.

I recognize a name or two from hypatia, but tbh I never knew them well to be honest.

Hypatia had a legion of old members who were assholes, they were rude, entitled, they felt the mattered over anyone else and tried to hold that over the heads of the admins to choose them over new RP'ers (who were also often pretty good, if not better), their RP was detailed and experienced, but they honestly were the "old, controlling conservative grandparents who fear the new generation" type of the group and the atmosphere lightened up after they went.

Not only just that, nearly every single one of them RP'ed assholes. I understand 'asshole' is a personality, because heck, even I've played one or two, but if assholes are all of your characters you've got to sit down and wonder, "Hey, am I an asshole? Am I even RP'ing?"

Sadly, the ones in administration who stayed at the ones who brought it down and they left too late. HK, being one of them. The funny thing about her is that her /me emotes were very detailed and her flavourtext was good, but her character was the goddess of mary sues.

So this depends on context, seriously.

The lore is a guideline; people say it's restrictive, but how? It outlines how the different species interact? You can't be a Space American?

 

Yeah Hypatia had a similar problem of this too.

I like lore, in moderation. It's there to add consistency to RP and a bit of spice to bring RP interactions off on. If it becomes like a giant history book and overly detailed, I'll switch off. I work, I come here to play, not study.

Okay, here's what I think loads of lore. It's boring. If only the lore team mostly likes the lore, then maybe that kind of proves my point. Secondly, I don't see the problem with a 'space American', in fact, I couldn't care less about custom countries (they'd have to be terribly interesting to catch someone's attention), in fact I'd find it more interesting if earth colonies (*either in space, or still on a radically changed earth) existed and the lore recaps what the climate of the popularly used countries is, what they are called now and the culture of said countries.

Because I only think people RP characters from countries because there's usually a set dialect, ethnicity, culture and customs associated with said countries.

But actually the lore thing is only my personal opinion really.

Edited January 30, 2015 by Guest

[Dea Tacita]

This is my Opinion. I don't believe myself to be "Right" I don't believe myself to be "Wrong" It is an opinion, that's it.

 

I personally don't see the need to go out of my way to accommodate newer players, but if they're clearly trying to fit into the server, I'll definitely help out

 

I'm honestly in agreement with this. We're not here to force new players to Enjoy Aurora, we're not here to cater to elitist attitudes that murder all the fun from the game and make the Server dreadful to get on. New players arrive, we try to teach them Aurora's style of roleplaying and help them in anyway we can. If they start griefing and cursing at staff (Forgive me for saying this) but fuck them. Aurora exists because we have things that other stations don't, our RP situation isn't 100% like other servers, why should we change this simply because someone who refuses to follow the rules wants to fit in, but refuses to let us help them?

 

Involve people.

 

God above, yes. I've roamed the halls trying to get people to RP repeatedly, meanwhile people just ignore me and continue to talk to their 3 person group of exclusive "Besties". While I get that you like these people , you're making it harder for new people to integrate and for existing people to create good new characters with relationships on the station.

 

Without conflict, there is no story

 

I'll take the middle-ground here. Sometimes a nice extended round where I don't have to worry about my RP being interrupted by Bob (The one coworker who'll talk to me) dragging me into an empty room and eating me. Conflict is good too however, I think going wholly one-way or another would be a bad idea.

 

What exactly is the atmosphere we are trying to create?

Personally, I think we need to focus on RP. Aurora is advertised as a Heavy Roleplaying server and so we should try to maintain an atmosphere that'd be worthy of that title. HOWEVER We do NOT need to be suspicious, condescending and generally asinine to new players because they "might" ruin an RP situation. People make mistakes, in-fact I can guarantee everyone in this thread has fucked up on Aurora at least once. We can be Heavy RP without being elitist, and we can be open to new players without changing who and what we are drastically.

I also do agree with you that Lore needs to be revised, but I don't think all restrictions should be thrown out of the window for the sake of "RP opportunities". A middle ground is the best approach, balancing what'll be fun for players with what makes sense in an in-character manner. And based on the alien whitelist thread, that's what most players agree with

 

Personally, I think mods and admins are too quick to respond to grief.

 

Admins are here to protect RP. Bob the scientist vaulting the HoP's desk screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" and detonating a bomb that vents 1/3rd of the station isn't RP in any manner of the word. There are -so- many times that we've managed to stop a griefer in-their-tracks from doing something that would've ruined a massive amount of RP, and not with any RP reason.

 

remove the blanket SSD restriction for antags.

 

No. Remember that we're here to have fun, and Carl the Chemist logging back onto Aurora after his computer turned off due to a power blink only to find himself dead, stuffed in a locker with absolutely no RP beyond "Lol, I'm antag" put into it isn't fun at all.

 

save 'admin cleanup' for AFTER things are resolved. Let the players handle grief. If a bald head scientist blows a hole in the middle of the station, let the engineers fix it and let medical save the victims, don't admin heal everyone and reset the damage.

 

Again, It's all about RP here. If we weren't an RP server I could see this being acceptable. But again "Bob the scientist vaulting the HoP's desk screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" and detonating a bomb that vents 1/3rd of the station isn't RP in any manner of the word." Our job is to make sure you guys have the environment so you can RP and have fun, Griefers who destroy 1/3rd of the station without a word aren't really conducive to this.

[Doomberg]

To the people my previous post pertained to, let me make this clear: I apologize if you feel attacked or offended in any way. What I want to make you understand is that sitting here and being bitter will not solve a single thing - it might actually be detrimental. What I propose is to try getting yourself to play again, even if it's only occasional, and see what you can do about solving our current predicament now that it's being brought to everyone's attention.

To those of you who currently play, I urge you to examine your overall attitude and how you treat others as objectively as possible. See what can be improved. It's not easy, but it needs to happen if we're to make things better.

[Guest]

Now, one thing I'd like to say a word or two about pertains to all the old players who keep going on about how they no longer play on our server because it's oh so distasteful and has become too cringeworthy for them. Let me ask you this: Apart from abandoning us in our time of need, what exactly have you done to remedy the situation? You were a part of this community, and like it or not, you helped make it what it is today. You're "disgusted with what it's become"? How about you do something to fix it, then? Take responsibility and contribute to improving the general atmosphere or step aside and quit being self-righteous, because /that/ is the most disgusting thing of all.

 

Okay, Doomberg.

I will go ahead and count down what made me leave the server, and what I do not like within the community in one huge passive agressive rant.If the staff team is as bad as I now think it is, you will focus on the hostility in my message to divert attention from my argument or just delete my post rather than reply to it.

1. On the subject of interspecies relationships.

When I was quite busy badmouthing this place on the subreddit, Tablespoon responded and he was quite upset that i'd accuse him of being a furry, or engaging in "Yiff".

I feel the need to explain just why I am so vocal of my displeasure when it comes to such activities.

Let us begin this discussion with the following phrase :

Anal vore.

Now, assuming that whoever read the last phrase doesn't have some very peculiar sexual interests, they would be shocked and disgusted by visualizing the activities which the phrase is used to describe.Infact, most people really wouldn't want to even see anything relating to anal vore.

Now, imagine there was a character on the station named Captain Assvore, who casually pursues his fetish all over the station.You'd feel suprised, disgusted and maybe somewhat amused by how ridiculous such a situation would be, but you probably wouldn't like being in the company of Captain Assvore, further more the character in question would almost immediately be removed because of his creepy fetish flaunting ways.Similarly to anal vore, I do not find anthropomorphic animals or "furries" sexually arousing.They are not my fetish and I feel revolted, disgusted when OOC breaks into a long saucy discussion about hot slimy space lizard love.The idea of making love to something with the face of a cat horrifies me, and it's even worse for something with the jaw of a crocodile where its mouth should be.I have different sexual interests of my own, and i'd like to point out that nobody on the server is aware of them as I have not shared them with anyone.That is because I believe that keeping your fetish to yourself is common courtesy, doing otherwise is an action referred to in the pen and paper RPG circles as bringing your fellows into a Magical Realm of sorts . So, if a large part of the community can be polite enough to keep whatever gets them in that mood to themselves, I don't see why the people in question could respond to this courtesy in kind and soothe the fire in their loins using e621 or Furaffinity, keeping their heretical pursuits off the station.

2.On the subject of Head roles and ERP

This is related to the rant on fetishes above.I do not like Heads who fuck their subordinates. I dislike heads who fuck other heads even more, but I do not think I have seen any of those (Thankfully).While a large number of the "Core" players claim they want to transform this place into a "realistic work environment" by removing crazy and unrealistic things, I have yet to see one who has pointed out that fucking on the job, let alone with your employees in a command position warrants a scandal, possibly termination and maybe even a lawsuit in any large real life corporation.This goes beyond mere power play fantasies and into the favoritism discussed in this thread.You wouldn't want to get someone with a command lover mad or it's off to the permabrig, scumbag! I have witnessed multiple instances of heads ignoring everyone around them and immediately pursuing a love interest.

Further more, let's go ahead and revive something from my old shitstorm thread. The current distribution of head positions being focused entirely on species with the ability to recieve, or dispense the D.

Considering the high ammount of raunchy jumpsuit romance present in the head roster, and the above mentioned head position distribution, it seems a lot like a part of the "Core" community is fiercely agressive and territorial to anything they can't pull a captain Kirk on.When you give these whitelisted players their own super secret whitelisted player forum and openly state you consider them to be more reliable than the rest of the community, it seems a lot like you're grading people willing to ERP with you a lot higher than people who dont want to ERP.

Of course, you might go ahead and say "But Rectum, ERP is not allowed on the server!"

Well, some people's complete lack of interest in anything other than caressing their love interest has made me believe they spend most of their time ERPing over another chat client.

3.On realism

Some people's characters are fucking crazy.

I am one of those people. The same goes for quite a few people here. The problem being that only a few of those people are willing to admit that. From Batman-esque self-insert prodigy detective-HoS-ERT-Surgeons, to Tajaran crime lords, to spellbook waving space-witches, to monkey eating lizard warrior womanizers, to floor length hair roboticists, to quadruple amputee mecha german Nurses/Officers, to Hannibal Lecter-Esque mysanthropic surgeons with a habbit of taking some liberties during their surgery.

You lot are a bunch of special snowflakes. Some of you are even straight out Sues. If you want to pretend you want "Suspension of disbelief" or "Quality control" for characters, why dont you start with your own?You can either accept the fact that a large part of the "Core" community (Myself included) play characters who are far too fucking unstable to exist in your perfect "realistic workplace" or pick on anyone new who comes and follows the example of what should be the server's "superior" whitelisted players.This was one of the main reasons I was so mad in my previous thread.When the people playing the character types I counted down earlier sat me down to tell me how important it is to have a "realistic" experience while playing the game it felt like Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way herself retrieved a copy of the Mary Sue Litmus test from her blood stained cleavage and slammed it on the table in front of me.When I looked at how much the mighty lore has to stretch and bend to even allow Nanotrasen to consider picking up a bunch of lizard bersekers or disobedient uneducated catmen instead of a reliable, dependable human being, let alone put them in a command position it felt a lot like there was an ulterior motive as for why the lore could change for some people, but not for others.It looked a lot like the main complaint wasn't "It's too unrealistic" because unrealistic things had been accepted without much opposition before.Rather, the real reason seemed to be "The very thought of having my awesome rebellious renegade Fursona having to fill a requisition form for more kunai in front of a robot makes them so mad they perform the ancient forgotten jutsu to unleash the spirit of the demon lord imprisoned in their left eye!"

Like I said in that thread, unless I see a sudden increase in the number of malnourished mistreated alien janitors on the station I will consider the main reason for the negative reaction to my previous proposition was because it could result in someone's totally awesome character becoming slightly less awesome.

4. On people being included in the fun.

WOW, crew.

An important guy just arrived on the shuttle. He's going to go in the bridge and talk to all the heads. Then he's going to leave.But you should be excited, I guess.

Alternatively -

WOW, crew.

Evil mercenaries are attacking the statio-Oh. Oh nevermind, they're after the same person all over again. I suppose everyone else can just SSD in the dorms or something.

WOW, crew.

We've been infiltrated by syndicate sleeper agents who have the ability to smuggle a wide variety of deadly hidden weapons on the station with their experimental techno-Oh. Or yeah, you could buy the chameleon jumpsuit and turn it into a fancy dress.Yeah. Okay.

WOW, crew.

There's a revolution going on!

...With mice!Yes. Mice. They dont do absolutely anything unless you're a cute medbay waifu. But mice. How silly!

WOW, crew.

Alien flesh eating shapeshifters have set foot on the station, they're wearing the faces of our former comrades and they're on a quest to satisfy their horrifying alien hunger!

Or they could just... not do that.

Tl;Dr

1. You come across an enchanted piss forest!

2. Jumpsuit, not Gimpsuit.

3. Mustafa is not like the other Tajarrran, but he thinks you should be.

4. Fashion is not a crime, and you're being paid to commit the latter.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Guest

[Doomberg]

Now, one thing I'd like to say a word or two about pertains to all the old players who keep going on about how they no longer play on our server because it's oh so distasteful and has become too cringeworthy for them. Let me ask you this: Apart from abandoning us in our time of need, what exactly have you done to remedy the situation? You were a part of this community, and like it or not, you helped make it what it is today. You're "disgusted with what it's become"? How about you do something to fix it, then? Take responsibility and contribute to improving the general atmosphere or step aside and quit being self-righteous, because /that/ is the most disgusting thing of all.

 

 

Okay, hi again. So, I'm not quite as talented at posting walls of text as others, thus I'll try to summarize my response. Let me try to clarify the main issue you seem to have, first: We don't have restrictions on IPC heads because everyone is a furry, we have restrictions on IPC heads because most of the lore team has been unfortunately focused on realism (or, at least, their own definition of realism) before fun. This is being actively discussed and will, hopefully, be remedied soon enough.

Regarding ridiculous characters, please, /please/, take a few precious moments out of your day to make a character complaint or five. I run that board, I actively handle them, but I can't do anything about the issue unless it's properly brought to my attention.

As for relationships between heads and subordinates/other heads, well, this happens in real life too. It only starts to become a problem when they're actively neglecting their duties due to said relationships. Again, I'd like to direct you to my favorite subforum, the complaints board. It can do wonders, yes?

[Guest]

Regarding ridiculous characters, please, /please/, take a few precious moments out of your day to make a character complaint or five. I run that board, I actively handle them, but I can't do anything about the issue unless it's properly brought to my attention.

 

I have one of the most ridiculous, insane characters on the station.

Shitting in someone's birthday cake because they're unrealistic while I myself have fun with something unrealistic would be immensely hypocritical, and that is where my complaint lies.

Certain people's creed of "absolute unquestionable realism above all" seems to extend to everyone but themselves.

[Gollee]

Regarding ridiculous characters, please, /please/, take a few precious moments out of your day to make a character complaint or five. I run that board, I actively handle them, but I can't do anything about the issue unless it's properly brought to my attention.

 

I have one of the most ridiculous, insane characters on the station.

Shitting in someone's birthday cake because they're unrealistic while I myself have fun with something unrealistic would be immensely hypocritical, and that is where my complaint lies.

Certain people's creed of "absolute unquestionable realism above all" seems to extend to everyone but themselves.

 

Then change your character, or, as Bokaza did, put up a complaint against yourself, so the community can decide.

[Doomberg]

Regarding ridiculous characters, please, /please/, take a few precious moments out of your day to make a character complaint or five. I run that board, I actively handle them, but I can't do anything about the issue unless it's properly brought to my attention.

 

I have one of the most ridiculous, insane characters on the station.

Shitting in someone's birthday cake because they're unrealistic while I myself have fun with something unrealistic would be immensely hypocritical, and that is where my complaint lies.

Certain people's creed of "absolute unquestionable realism above all" seems to extend to everyone but themselves.

 

There's "fun" ridiculous and then there's ridiculous ridiculous. I'm asking for complaints for those in the latter category.

[Jamini]

I don't want to get too heavily involved with the uh... discussion in this thread, but since I am a new player to Aurora I'd like to chime in on a few things that I've personally noticed/felt on coming here and starting new characters up.

1. Department matters significantly for the new player experience!

Having played three departments, and getting to watch another new player experience two others, I've found that certain departments are far more welcoming of new players that others. Specifically:

Science - Surprisingly welcoming! Flick in particular was very nice to a totally unknown scientist with a handful of tiny quirks, and the rest of the science staff (even the a RD) were quite nice in helping Edwin get acclimated. Especially when it came to potentially illegal or dangerous research. Of the departments I've played, I would by far call out to science players for being the most newbie-friendly of all departments, as well as the most inter-departmentally friendly!

Medical - Your medical department seems... inexperienced and distant. I'm not certain if it's your requirements for medical training or what but, it seems medical is just very difficult to get fully involved in. I feel medical mostly do their own thing, when they are on-station at all. I've had very little inter-medical RP while playing as Blake, and from the outside they just don't seem to have a really stable player base outside of two or three regulars, from what I've seen.

Engineering - Insular. So very, very insular. It was exceedingly difficult to even start getting into the engineering clique, even with a Tajaran character. While there are certainly engineers friendly to outsiders (Haligan, Sesiros, and Sairis spring to mind immediately!) there are still others who I struggle to even get the time of day from, even though they are observed to be active.

Security - With so many people who play sec, I imagine they have massive turnover in addition to the regulars there. My main interaction with sec has been on the receiving end or as an outside observer. My main view on them? They are excessively harsh. Virtually no warnings are given, and lethals are broken out at the drop of a hat. I've seen a certain HOS who I won't name directly demand maximum time (twenty minutes, which equated to nearly forty, a huge chunk of the round, if you included processing) on a vandalism+trespassing charge for an illegal modification, regardless of the fact that said engineering apprentice willingly complied with security and the CE at the time (Sairis) had even stated the modifications were not very severe, simply annoying. The only reason there was not an IC incident report filed was that I did not have the time to fill out the paperwork/get the whole story from the apprentice.

I've also, likewise, seen security completely ignore hostage roleplay/charge into a prepared and well-armed nuke team, directly leading to a rather quick death while armed with nothing but tasers, batons, flashes, and a few flashbangs. Being one of the nuke operative at the time, it was ... interesting, but ultimately saddening experience. I had hoped that security here would have taken the hostage and arms difference into account better.

Overall, security here is very trigger-happy and arrest-happy. I don't really feel this is a good thing, as it can utterly crush some less-robust antagonists and drastically escalates antags into a "ganker" mindset. A gun should not always be the first answer to a solution in security. Especially for non-violent crew/antagonists!

Command - I'm fully aware of the whitelist for command, and what I've seen from some current commanders... concerns me greatly. While yes, there are some fantastic command characters (I cannot compliment Sairis and Elana enough in particular. Both of you are a damn pleasure to work with as a superior.) as a whole I've seen some distressing tendencies from command.

I've noticed a tendency of command to ignore or be ignorant of your own server SOP in regards to acting captaincy and acing departmental head staff. Often leading to a complete shutdown of departments, or at least making it utterly impossible for people to do things the "right way". Recently I've witnessed a round where both the captain and HOP were murdered by cultists, and since no other acting heads of staff were assigned... the crew was made virtually helpless until the ERT were called in! Failures like this fall directly on the head of the captain/acting captain! You /need/ to have someone in charge of various departments, and you need to know who is required to step up to command the station if things start to fall apart! Even in perfectly calm situations you need someone to fill out modification/requisitions/and access requests. If you are unwilling to do so in the absence of a true captain, why are you playing command?

The second issue with command? Communication. While "Need to know" is fine and dandy, an uninformed crew is a panicked, misdirected, and unhelpful crew. The primary job of command staff is to keep their departments and the station functioning smoothly, even if things do start to go south. Engineers, medics/doctors, scientists... everyone has something they can do to contribute to a crisis if you make an effort to include them! Far too often Command (and this isn't an Aurora-specific issue. It's fairly pandemic in any HRP server) simply do not go the extra mile to include departments that are not security. If you have a changeling eating people in maint, and the engineers are wondering what is going on, a simple, "Murderer on the loose, keep your heads down." from the current captain or department head of staff can mean a world of difference! An informed, respected crew-member is a helpful crew-member, and are more likely to listen to orders even if they don't make sense.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Guest

[Tenenza]

Just an FYI, at the moment, SOP is a ghost.

It doesn't exist, at least not in a solid form.

It isn't actually binding, or required currently, since exactly 2 people know how it actually works, and we've got tons of people who think they know, but don't actually.

It is currently being thrown out in favour of a new system of General Orders, which is still being developed.

As for communication, it really depends on the character, and the atmosphere.

Command is there to help make the round more fun, and sometimes, if the antag is specifically going for a degree of terror and paranoia (like say, how changling /should/ work) then sometimes heads of staff would want to limit spilling the beans on the situation to make it more atmospheric.

[Jamini]

Just an FYI, at the moment, SOP is a ghost.

It doesn't exist, at least not in a solid form.

It isn't actually binding, or required currently, since exactly 2 people know how it actually works, and we've got tons of people who think they know, but don't actually.

It is currently being thrown out in favour of a new system of General Orders, which is still being developed.

As for communication, it really depends on the character, and the atmosphere.

 

Chain of succession is very clearly outlined, as is acting captaincy.

 

The Succession of Command & Acting Captain

-The 'Acting Captain' is a function that a head can have, he/she serves the crew and has command over the other heads.

-The 'Acting Captain' is basically the legitimate holder of the Spare ID.

-In absence of a proper Captain, the heads choose an 'Acting Captain', which means he/she is allowed to take the Spare ID from the Captain's Quarters, to perform actions with that need to be done with it, most importantly operating the ID computer in the HoP office for the crew.

-The other active heads remain equal in rank. In the absence of any heads of staff, ALL departmental crew remain equal in standing, the assistants and departmental assistants ranking below departmental crew.

-If the 'Acting Captain' or the proper Captain wants to go SSD( =logout), he/she must hand the Spare over to the next head chosen.

-If you are the last active head and want to go SSD ( =logout), adminhelp it, so admins can appoint a new Acting Captain swiftly and/or secure the spare.

-If no admins are online/responding at that point, throw the Spare into the Captain's Quarters.

-When the proper Captain arrives, hand the Spare to him/her, so it can return to its spot, in his/her office)

-The 'Acting Captain' must announce his/her newly gained function, so the crew knows who to turn to.

-Repeat it regularly over radio so newly arrived crew are informed too.

-Keep in mind, being the 'Acting Captain' is a DUTY, NOT a PRIVILEGE.

 

The third bullet pretty much explicitly states that you should always have an acting captain. Assigning other acting heads is more of a common sense thing.

 

Command is there to help make the round more fun, and sometimes, if the antag is specifically going for a degree of terror and paranoia (like say, how changling /should/ work) then sometimes heads of staff would want to limit spilling the beans on the situation to make it more atmospheric.

 

This doesn't really work. Instead of paranoia, you have crew that have no idea anything is happening at all. I've generally found releasing some information is much, much better at fostering fear and paranoia than saying nothing as security lock down antagonists. Silence from command is one of the worst things to deal with, as it keeps people out of the round entirely more often than it makes things atmospheric. This is my own personal opinion, as a recent newcomer to the server and a fairly long-term command staff player elsewhere. Take from it what you will.

Edit: I'm also not saying that command staff should spill the beans on everything to the whole crew. There are often and obvious cases where things should be kept from the bulk of the crew. However! Silently going to blue alert, or failing to let emergency response crew know that there is a clear and present threat to the station is present is not a good way to go about it either. Again, an informed crew is a helpful crew. An uninformed crew is going to bite you in the rear when you least want or expect it.

[Tenenza]

A note:

The part about acting captain policy is simply not in effect anymore, evidently.

It appears to just be a hangover from a failed attempt to establish less conflict over the position, and really only exists to establish that all heads are equal. It's generally no longer considered to be ineffect, as both command whitelisted players and staff have ruled it to be impractical, unnecessary amount of staff interference into the round, and is worded very badly.

This section will be officially removed when the general order update is finished.

Also, information:

As I said, it depends on the character and atmosphere. In my experience, limiting information on cult rounds and certain changling rounds is the most effective way at breeding confusion, since it gives cult a chance to RP convert people, and ling for allowing them to impersonate the dead better. Other rounds are more situational.

[Jamini]

Very well. I will still state that there needs to be someone in charge. Currently it can be ridiculously crippling to just about every non-security department if there is no acting captain or appropriate head of staff if one wishes to do things properly. If you couple the lack of a commander in with very, very, very arrest-happy security, it becomes an issue if one wants to even do very simple, beneficial things such as optimizing atmospherics, setting/configuring shield generators, rennovating construction areas, or pushing into questionable research. I've personally held onto completed, but unauthorized forms for such things for hours while waiting for a captain or RD/CE to arrive, when there were headstaff present who would not take acting captain.

While lack of command can be source of RP occasionally, often it becomes little more than an OOC irritation. ("Oh hey, I want to do this thing. But since nobody can listen to my request, I'm either going to /not/ do it and sit on my hands, or do it and open myself for arrest and brigging for ages. What 'fun!' I'll just do nothing, since I'd rather not sit in the brig for an hour or more.") At its worst, such a thing can completely shut down a potentially fantastic RP situation. (For example, if one sets up a medical emergency station in arrivals. Even without command staff it will at minimum involve one or more engineers, one or more doctors, and one or more security officers. As well as any passerby in the construction and setup.)

Be mindful, there will always be people who will do things regardless if they have permission or not. I'm simply stating that currently, lacking a head of staff removes the possibility for people with characters who want do things "legitimately" and "right" far more than it should.

[Tenenza]

That issue aims to be rectified in the new General Orders, which should allow much more flexability then SOP, and allow more department freedom in times without a head.

[Jamini]

That issue aims to be rectified in the new General Orders, which should allow much more flexibility then SOP, and allow more department freedom in times without a head.

 

That is quite exciting news. I look forward to reading them over.

[SierraKomodo]

On the side of communication, having been playing CE recently, I can say that command staff even seem to have some trouble communicating with eachother. I've had a couple rounds with three other heads, where the command channel was completely quiet, even when Helosi attempted to get someone to tell her something (All three of them were active, I'd seen them running around throughout the round). Makes it a bit hard for Sairis to tell her team things if she doesn't know them herself.