Shifted Community?

[Coalf]

32 minutes ago, BurgerBB said:

You forgot to put something here.

[BurgerBB]

If you're trying to perform a gotcha with those two quotes it's not going to work.

I will not go out of my way to interact with characters who are overly emotional, depressive, and unrealistic. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me doing this, and me doin this does not contribute to any problem whatsoever because I will STILL interact with them if I have to.

There is a problem with these characters who are in circles who then use this emotional rollercoaster to make 90% of the round about them and generally act hostile icly and oocly to new and existing characters. If I joined Aurorastation for the first time on one of these rounds where most of these types of characters are prevalent, I would probably never join again and move onto another station, which I actually did.

I absolutely love new players, especially shitposters who mix things up. I've posted this on reddit a lot where MRP people join as new characters and do MRP things and it's just so fucking great. They're usually super friendly icly and oocly, super creative as well, but they usually end up breaking rules or just not coming back because they have other servers to play on. I end up catching depression immediately after the next round when the first thing I hear over common is something I can hear two damaged children on the playground discussing.

I think we need to implement Aurora High as a containment zone because of this.

 

[Coalf]

I didn't perform a gotcha, I implied you're one of those characters.

[Mofo1995]

On a positive note, I love you all. I hope we can all get along.

 

Pretty much anyone I even mildly disliked isn't around anymore, and I think a lot of the cool, hip young new folks are a lot of fun and full of potential. As I said before, I really think the only thing that actually changed is our [older lads] own activity. We have a really diverse crowd around here with a lot of cool ideas and good roleplay. The more we bog[danoff] down and pout about the old days is unfair to the talented new crop who try really hard to meet our unrealistic standards. Sulking about the inevitable march of time is fine and I do it every single day, but I really feel it's fundamentally wrong to raise issues with the current roleplay when, if anything, the newer crowd is more inclusive than ever. When I first joined the server in 2015 it was metaclique hell, and I quickly got bored, griefed, and was banned. Only months later when I returned and played with a whirlwind of activity did I finally start making friends and feeling like I fit in. Lasting IC friendships can only come with sustained activity and playtime, and while many of our old guard character favorites aren't around anymore, perfectly good new friendships are waiting to be made. 

 

My biggest advice is advice I gave before to the disenfranchised, and the advice is to go completely out of your way to interact with someone. Not just in the general sense of sitting in the bar and waiting for roleplay to come to you, but pick someone on that crew manifest and single them out for your attention. Is there a chef around? Go ask them 20 questions about who they are, how they got to Tau Ceti, what their favorite dish is, what do they think about current events. Is there a psych? Setup and appointment and get them in their office to talk and interact. I always find decent success when I do this, and while no enduring character friendships are formed because I don't follow up on these interactions with consistent playtime, you can see really quickly that the quality of roleplay on the server hasn't declined a bit.

[BurgerBB]

7 hours ago, Coalf said:

I didn't perform a gotcha, I implied you're one of those characters.

Yes, Diamond with Flaw, a literal emotionless tree, and Marwani, a walking lesbian meme, is an emotional rollercoaster who frequently acts hostile towards other crew members on common.

If you could explain how that isn't the case I would be happy to improve upon either characters.

[Coalf]

I think the posts in this thread explained everything about yourself and your characters better than I ever could.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

In a thread about a shifted community growing more hostile we have two people sniping at each other to publically belittle each other............ stop that

The community is fine I think. Things were really crazy in 2015. I got bwoinked and a note for hopping the counter to make eggs in the kitchen as an engineer for 2 people on a date, then got a note about it.

There's defintely some problematic characters that cuss a lot on the radio and scream and I wish they'd chill out a bit. Even saying heck or freaking when screaming can keep a shouting match amusing instead of second-hand embarrassing

I've had OOC disabled on the server since 2016 so maybe I've been the target of a longstanding hate campaign in OOC but haven't seen it and im totally wrong but the primary source of hostility and general mean spiritedness comes from veteran players and it is very upsetting sometimes because this drives away new players who are universally great

i agree with mofo, my heteronormative platonic life partner, completely

Edited November 25, 2018 by Marlon Phoenix

[BurgerBB]

10 hours ago, Coalf said:

I think the posts in this thread explained everything about yourself and your characters better than I ever could.

I genuinely think you're here just to be malicious considering the only arguments you have put forward is "look at these posts" without explaining the significance of these posts, even after I asked you to clarify your points. You really need to stop doing this. You've done this multiple times and even admitted you like riling people up before via arguments and I think that I'm going to bring this back on topic by pointing out that another reason for a shifted community is that people don't know how to present and respond to criticisms and arguments. This isn't youtube. This is us trying to create a functioning server.

There are people on here who like to overreact to criticisms, myself sometimes included, and I believe that's a problem within itself. When you present a problem to someone, and what they do to address the problem is spew insults or play around with the person, then the person who is giving the criticism feels like they're being ignored and therefor powerless to stop it. I'm not asking people to write an essay-length university level response when it comes to why they disagree with something, but I'm asking people to actually not be a dick when responding. The power of this effect is quadrupled when the person involved is staff and has some say over what happens in the server behavior wise as well as code wise in some cases. Yes, this is the internet, but yes this is a community that I would like not to be filled with assholes. Now I have to be an asshole and assume what you mean because I have received little clarification of your points.

When I said I don't feel like interacting with anyone because common channel is filled with hostility and general depression, what I meant was that my motivation to interact with anyone is at a very decreased level. I don't feel motivated to go out and go around the station when most of the people who are currently involved in the round are involving themselves in overly unstable depression/anxiety/anger RP. I'm putting myself in the shoes of a new player, and if I saw that sort of shit, I would straight up steer the fuck clear of those people like I would in real life or probably leave the server. I wouldn't care too much if this scenario was an anomaly, but as I said I could mention like 6 players off the top of my head who behaves in this sort of way and just makes interacting with them unpleasant.

A sane person would clearly say "But those people aren't solely the focus of the round." and you would be right, but given this current "culture" of command and security acting like hardcore military kids who shield the station from any fart an antag makes so you don't know who's part of the round. Always on announcements, it's "We're moving to code blue because of an unconfirmed threat to the station. The ISD will dealing with this. Please remain in your departments."

Something needs to change. I'm willing to change as well, I've been changing and been taking breaks as a chemist and going around the station to the bar. I've been begrudgingly doing prescriptions after finding an optimization technique in making them. I've been trying to speak more over common, and I believe it is working because a lot of people seem to care about Diamond with Flaw surviving considering I always have people bring me flares and lanterns when issues come up. There are some things I can't change, such as other people, so I encourage them to look at their own flaws and see how they can improve them and whether or not a new player would stay away from them or engage with them.

[Coalf]

Exactly, so why didn't you post this response in the first place?

If we want to change the community we can't keep reacting in overdramatized, buzzword ridden insults that we think aren't going to come back to bite us in the ass just because we didn't mention "specific" people.
It's disingenuous to go posting this genuinely well thought out, constructive and honest post when the first post in this thread is a giant "fuck you" to about half the server.

I agree with you, these over-reactions need to stop but we have to start somewhere and that somewhere is ourselves, pity parties like this thread do nothing they're precisely that brand of over-reaction you yourself call out, so it's better to not entertain them.
You made some good decisions, you made some bad decisions, you made some pointless decisions but you're more of a contributor than I'll ever be and when I fuck off from this server and die of ligma the changes you put in will still be here while I'll rot away in annals of history.

Let's start posting what you posted now at the start of threads instead of their end, let's start preventing things instead of regretting things because there are just some things that we can't change but what a person can always change is themselves, with time and effort.

I acknowledge what you said and I do have a long way to go as a person in my responses and behaviour, but the simple fact is I responded to a very long disrespectful comment via a very short disrespectful comment.
So now I'm responding to this respectful post with a respectful post.

As I said at the start, this shift wasn't the issue of a single event, it was the entire playerbase moving the server.
In the same sense, you're not responsible for everything bad with the server, neither am I, nobody here is, we're all responsible for the bad and for the good.

  “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” - Luke 6:31

[Coalf]

To add to all of that, I apologize.

[Scheveningen]

the "serious discussion" curse lives on. there's always a couple people so utterly willing to derail a point of contentiousness through a personal argument and make an issue not even about them, about them.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Scheveningen

[Coalf]

Just like those damn manifestos.

[StationCrab]

I know you said you weren't interested in feedback from newer players, but I figured I'd just jot mine down.

I've been playing for a little over a year now, on and off. I've always felt like an outsider, both IC and OOC. The cliques you refer to are difficult to work with, in character and out. I often find that players aren't really interested in interacting with names they haven't seen before, or if they are forced to do so, it is brief and rushed. This could be a bit of my fault, maybe my characters aren't engaging enough, or my role play style isn't that great, it's hard to tell.

From a game standpoint, coming in as a new player to SS13 is very daunting, I've struggled with it a lot. I've made a lot of big mistakes, and my experience as the starter jobs (Medical Resident, Engineering Apprentice, Security Cadet ect.) have been mixed. I have encountered very few players who are interested in teaching in an in character manner. Most of the players who command these departments, or have worked there for a long time, do not seem very keen on allowing a new player to take the reigns and try things out. Usually if I am struggling with something OOC and IC it is ripped from my hands and completed by an expert before I can really learn what is going on. Even when observing there doesn't seem to be any attempt by the players to explain exactly what they are doing in a role play manner. Now I know the wiki is a thing, and I always have it open, but sometimes things aren't very clear, and I wish there were more people who were willing to role play with the cadet level jobs on the station.

I certainly understand not every player wants to teach in this manner, and I do make use of ahelp quite often (I'm sure the admins recognize my name asking silly questions on a regular basis). I just thought I would give my perspective on how I was received as a new character and player. This hasn't really dissuaded me from playing here, I keep coming back for more because I really do enjoy at least watching the interactions between established players from afar. I think that is why I have been playing Robots and AI lately, just assisting the crew and providing some atmosphere to role play situations, without really needing to try and inject myself in existing friend circles and cliques. I really love the community here, despite a few unbelievable characters that act a bit irrationally, but even those characters add a bit of spice.

Anyways, I hope my feedback is helpful, and I look forward to many more rounds with all of you!

[Allakai]

Hi ya'll. Howdy do and what not. So coming from someone who's been here for what...  3 months or so? I can't say a ton about the long history of Aurora. Though I can say that my experience has been heavily mixed. When I first joined I knew incredibly little about the game. In fact my very first round was playing as a medical resident. I knew absolutely no game mechanics. I really had no clue what I was doing but I actually had a couple friendly players go out of their way to help a clearly struggling new player with medical (Though I still quit the job because well it was daunting and I was still incredibly new)

 

Jumping forward to about a month, like I said, I have had a mixed teaching. Sometimes a lot of things I had to learn and/or teach myself. Though either because of luck or something as such I always had a friendly face onboard that would be more than willing to teach me something that I didn't know much about. Sometimes I would get the offhand feeling I was being a nuisance or annoying to deal with given how little I understood the game. Yet never outwardly shown such feelings.

 

Now, anyway, getting to the idea of clique friends/ friendships/ etc. Maybe its just me, but given my most recognizable (Zahra Mrakiizar) I do say that I have plenty of interaction with the rest of the crew. I know that many roles and positions get the short end of the stick when it comes to roleplaying, and as such I really do try and make friends with everyone. Because nothing hurts more than having a character that you like and think is great roleplay material, but has no friends. 

 

My only real complaint of the community is the low key hostility towards each other. While I do have complaints against some players (mainly for poor IC stuff and SOMETIMES poor OOC behavior) I don't actually have anyone I actually dislike. As someone that is still relatively new to the community I just see a lot of general annoyance and irritation towards each other and a general lack of communication at times.

 

I hope this long winded and honestly all over the place response sheds some light on my feelings about this and if I need to clarify anything I'd be more than happy to say :^)

[SleepyWolf]

Personally, as a long-time player, the new way roleplay occurs is amazing to me. It's EXACTLY my style. With less metacliques and more self-interested characters, those self-interested characters flourish and can abuse/rag/roleplay with other people antagonistically without their best friends coming to smash your face in. All of my characters have adapted to this, focusing on the fact that people CAN be racist and antagonizing. And if you ever do make a friend, you can plot against your co-worker that bullies you. I love it.?

[TrickingTrapster]

Oh, I didn't mean new player input wasn't welcome, just that it wasn't the target audience of the thread. But by all means, share your input if you're new. My goal with this thread is to make sure the community right now is actually having the RP environment that they want instead of just going with it because 'that's how it is'. And I don't mind a shift in generally accepted characters, like what Sleepy said about getting more antagonizing towards others, but what I do mind is if that results in people getting shafted from having good roleplay because "muh character wouldn't talk to strangers". Or getting cheated out of learning a job because of it. I don't mind a generally grumpier crew manifest but that shouldn't go at the cost of alienating new characters that are trying to fit in.

[Doxxmedearly]

I would still call myself “newish,” going on about eight months now. I don’t know the old days of aurora. Sometimes I feel out of the loop; people hold opinions today that were caused by things before me, or they’ll be excited about an old legendary name, or something along those lines.

We should never settle for “this is the way things are, just because that’s just how it be,” I agree. But some points talking about “the way of things” in this thread are talking about how change happens, and that IS the way things go. Old members leave, new members come in, and shifting in culture happens. I helped a friend of mine launch a successful forum RP site, and was the head moderator and the most active member there for a long time. Eventually I left. This was over two years ago. If I went back now, things would inevitably be different. Maybe in a way I like, maybe not. Maybe I would find that I couldn’t fit in. That’s my problem. If the general population of the server is having fun, is it really a bad change?

That’s just a personal example and perspective of mine. No doubt things have changed from the old days on this server, but I enjoy the here and now. I like seeing players who come after me becoming common names in the community, like Fresh and Allakai. There’s plenty of friendly people and characters around.

When I was doing apprentice-level jobs (Engineering, cadet, resident), I didn’t have a problem with people showing me the ropes. Maybe I got lucky? But people were friendly and welcoming, including complete strangers and players I didn’t know. This includes IC interactions (even with notable "grumps) and just being patient and nice in LOOC when I don't know how to do something. I wasn’t even on the discord for the longest time, so most people were strangers to me. I had people eventually coming out of their way to interact with my lonely librarian character. I don’t personally see a large issue with metacliques, or at least metacliques that are unwelcoming. I was easily accepted into the tight-knit medical circle by just…. Interacting with them.

Were there and are there problems with people being unwelcoming? Absolutely. Like I said, when I was new, I didn’t know the culture. I didn’t know FLBs were a meme, or that pink hair was considered an absolute sin by some. I got a ton of ooc hate and shit for it; I almost ended up quitting (However, current day me is full of spite and said “fuck you” to the bullies by continuing to play and enjoying myself. Some people might not be so strong, though. And nobody should have to deal with that). When I went to play sec, I got a lot of LOOC and OOC salt about being unrobust (As if that was a requirement? Sec doesn’t always have to win!) I didn’t try antagonist until a few months ago because of all the OOC hate I witness on “Bad antagonists; “Just don’t play antag,” “Never ready up for antag again,” “who was that shitty X?” and etc. Some people are incredibly unforgiving of new players and the bad rounds they may encounter while these players try to learn. Let’s remember that SS13 is not at ALL an intuitive game, and it takes time to get used to! Being an antag is a lot of pressure; you have to maintain a gimmick in a shifting environment, get used to all sorts of new different tools and powers, and are responsible for driving the story of everyone’s round. It should be okay to fail now and then.

I think people need to be friendlier and more forgiving on a whole, in this community. There’s plenty of good, but sometimes it can be hard to spot. Overall, though, I feel like even new players have a good chance of interacting with others. I know I try to be inclusive, and encourage others to be. It’s a cooperative story we’re playing here, and everyone wants to have fun. We’d do well to remind ourselves that more.

[Mofo1995]

I just wanna say I played a few rounds yesterday, and I was kind of blown back. In my entire history of playing on the server, traitor antags have kind of never worked together and always fucked off to do their own thing. So when I spawned into the shift as a tator tot, I just kind of figured I was on my lonesome. But BOY was I in for a surprise. I went on a quest to assassinate every station pet as a means of destroying crew morale... uh... for the ALA. It was dumb and gimmicky and silly, but I was in for a genuine surprise. One by one I started bumping into people who flung the pass phrases at me and repeatedly broke me out of prison or got me off the hook for my crimes. Three times security took me in and every single time a NEW traitor I had never associated with before got me free and multiple times even got me my contraband back. NOIR the detective was a big key in this as he convinced everyone else that I couldn't have done my crimes for lack of material evidence, even though the CSI had strong evidence against me, and he even went as far as to bring me Lt. Columbo for slaughter, something I never could have done on my own. From there an assistant broke me out after communicating the code words with me while Noir solo'd all of security in the brig in an epic showdown, and as we tried to join the fray to break our comrade out when he was defeated, we too were taken. But then a security officer dropped the pass phrases and SAVED ME where we proceeded to loot the vault but fail to rescue our comrades. It was bizarre and excellent, the antag cohesion was strong and the roleplay, despite my abjectly stupid goals, was awesome. It had been so long since I had such a fun round, and the newer players associated with both trying to turn me in as well as helping me in my quest were acting with a degree of cooperation and role play the likes of which were always the exception and not the rule. The cherry on top was that I was playing a relatively new character who hasn't even seen ten rounds on station, and yet seemlessly they worked with me and invested their time to involve and interact with me in ways the old guard often failed to.

In short, the fresh faces of the community are inclusive, fun, and breathing new life into the server.

[Carver]

On 11/24/2018 at 7:24 AM, Conspiir said:

There is no "Good old days." The good old days were terrible, too, you just didn't see it (or remember it that way). There is only the now and the future from now.

I wouldn't call them terrible. Nostalgia has a charm of it's own, and there are simply some things that will never be experienced again. Cherish the past, hold it high as a standard for the future. If a moment in the future exceeds it for you, then you know you're in a golden era.

[sonicgotnuked]

I've honestly forgot when I first came on the server. 2016? I first learned about ss13 when I was nearing the end of high school freshman year and after playing on TG code, I remember my attention drawing towards Aurora. I placed hours into this server until hours turned into literal days infront of my computer playing Aurora, Interacting with the community, and simply having a great time during such simple times in my life. It was like my Minecraft phase all over again for me even if none of my real life friends understood the game like I have.

 

To say, I am glad I found Aurora. Even if I was banned from synth, antagonist roles, and even a shitty player back in the day. I fully believe this server helped guide me in my life with maturity and grammar improvements. I came to the server with shitty spelling and I came out with decent grammar enough to at least drag me through my Senior Essay's.

 

I remember rounds and hold some true to my heart like the kell round of 2016. I sometimes look at that video and wish at times Complete Garbage was able to capture the absolute madness and laughter of all our voices inside the voice chat. (No hard feelings)

 

The server is old enough that the people who first joined grew older. I learned how to drive while I was playing, got my first job, even went to a damn military school. Time will always advance, and for the veterans, sometimes our lives change and ss13 naturally falls behind us.

[MattAtlas]

Times change. The community changes. The people you used to RP with left due to burnout.

Not a single community has remained intact and the same after one or two years.

[rrrrrr]

my 2 cents as a vet of the neo-troubles:

the new map sucks donkey dick

[MarauderW]

I recently (read, 2 days ago) joined the server and about one week joined the SS13 game as I came with the Sseth wave. However, I am a gamer, and I follow Sseth precisely to see what I could be playing, so when I heard that there was a space themed RP game that  is free, I couldn't believe my luck!

I hopped on to one HRP server, learned the game, a couple of mechanics, and tried to RP. I then got banned for poor drone play, which is entirely my fault, maybe I shouldn't go HRP when still learning the game but still, I tried as I enjoy the chill/calm atmosphere of HRP more than the chaos of other servers.

I then came to Aurora and as fresh meat I didn't notice cliques yet. I mainly focus on the gameplay aspect, learning my job, the tools I have to use, stuff like that. But if I do want to engage in roleplay there are tons of options, from the great PDA that I can contact anyone anytime to just fudging around with the mining equipment or relaxing in a bar. The point I want to make is that I need to force myself into the story and cliques (even if I do not see them).

I was at the bar last night with 3 other sec guys (one gal), and they  were doing their own thing y'know. I could easily talk or inject myself into their convo. But I preferred to smoke my cigarette (irl too) and actually relax after a short yet fruitful mining day.

People need to be both open and involve themselves forcefully if needed into conversations, but not to the extent that it is absurd or not realistic. I won't bother a medic as he's trying to revive a patient for example. We're all creatures of habit, IRL and IC, and getting over the clique situation is, mostly, your own job to engage and make other like or dislike your attempt at "being the new guy" (read, fresh meat).

Maybe the above doesn't really help but... to put it bluntly, have balls (or lady parts) to interact, if people don't like you or you don't like them, move on to anyone of the many people on Aurora. Slowly but surely you'll make a name for yourself. 

I am currently "that miner guy", an unknown player, and I quite frankly like it that way, I can focus on actually learning the game.

I also want to mention that the people in mining are kind hearted and showed me how to do my job (together with the wiki) easily. 

We're also the best people on the station so come on down, grab a pick and join the REVOLU.... I mean. Chill atmosphere of your internal's beeping in space.

Right.