Policy Update on Loadout Items

[Skull132]

Recent events have spurred the creation of this policy in order to clarify and direct future efforts in this specific field.

Looking forward, newly added non-generic loadout items are required to be associated with a specific in-lore culture. Direct ports from other servers are highly discouraged and will face higher scrutiny. Further, no new alternative crew working/duty uniforms are to be introduced until the present situation with them has been unfucked and unified for NBT. Elaborations below:

• What's a non-generic loadout item? We consider minor and generally unimportant accessories to be generic loadout items. These include items such as gloves, canes, watches, etcetera.
• What does it mean for an item to be associated with a specific in-lore culture? Simple: the item in question must fit into, visually and thematically, into one of the many cultures represented in our lore. When in doubt, consult a lore writer/master. It is highly recommended that you highlight this on the PR yourself, instead of leaving it up to us to figure it out.

And a slightly longer elaboration on why this policy exists in the first place. Loadout items have been a surprisingly hot topic of debate over the years, with view points ranging from absolute and total player control, over to the idea that literally everything should be the same forever and ever. Well there's a golden road somewhere there, but there are things to be kept in mind when finding this. Outside of the memetastic argument of bloat, there's another common MO in the process of adding new loadouts which is what the staff are looking to target: ports from other servers. As time progresses, it would be nice for Aurora to slowly and consistently develop its own style both visually and content wise. What directly undermines this goal is the porting, recently en-masse, of loadout and generally accessible gear from other servers. Loadouts and what people wear and use are a great way to further represent our lore ingame with, so make use of it.

Similar scrutiny is slowly being applied to the porting of resprites from other servers, with ones from very visually distinct servers (like Eris) already being forbidden/denied.

This policy is primarily forward looking. However, as always, the developers reserve the right to review and adjust the currently available options of loadout items.

[Garnascus]

Sounds fine. I have always been of the opinion that too many different outfit items of varying styles turns this into a Halloween dress up contest. We need our own style.

[Boggle08]

21 hours ago, Skull132 said:

 

• What's a non-generic loadout item? We consider minor and generally unimportant accessories to be generic loadout items. These include items such as gloves, canes, watches, etcetera.

My question was answered in discord, but I am going to also make this question a forum post for others to see:

Does this mean every new addition to the coat, hat, and jumpsuit slot in the foreseeable future has to be tied to a specific setting or culture in the lore, until the loadout system is in a happy place?

[Skull132]

Just now, Boggle08 said:

Does this mean every new addition to the coat, hat, and jumpsuit slot in the foreseeable future has to be tied to a specific setting or culture in the lore, until the loadout system is in a happy place?

As answered, TL;DR: yes. Exceptions will exist as is necessary but no more dumps of random bland or out-of-place looking clothing from other servers, please and thank you. Or in general.

[Carver]

I can do little but disagree with this sentiment. Customization is valuable, and I've always held that there's no such thing as loadout 'bloat' so much as poor organization within the loadout.

Tying random clothing to cultures does nothing for the organization problem, instead only serving to unjustifiably tie articles of clothing to a series of 'who fucking cares' in what I can only assume is some vain attempt to discourage people from making TC-based characters.

[Codename: Bear]

This only affects new items correct or will things in the existing loadout be changed?

 

This was answered on the discord. I don't really have much of a problem with it to a point. Just kind of wish there were a couple more generic things like capes or something like that just for fun. Maybe there is and I just miss it due to how the Loadout menu can be a little wonky. Otherwise this is a thing.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Codename: Bear
I saw it answered on the discord when I actually logged in

[Alberyk]

16 minutes ago, Codename: Bear said:

This only affects new items correct or will things in the existing loadout be changed?

 

On 03/07/2020 at 16:25, Skull132 said:

This policy is primarily forward looking. However, as always, the developers reserve the right to review and adjust the currently available options of loadout items.

 

[Alberyk]

26 minutes ago, Carver said:

Tying random clothing to cultures does nothing for the organization problem, instead only serving to unjustifiably tie articles of clothing to a series of 'who fucking cares' in what I can only assume is some vain attempt to discourage people from making TC-based characters.

It should not be random clothings, they should be made with the culture/part of the setting they represent. Also, nothing is stopping people from adding stuff from Tau Ceti.

[Carver]

2 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

It should not be random clothings, they should be made with the culture/part of the setting they represent. Also, nothing is stopping people from adding stuff from Tau Ceti.

Would Sol and TC-related fashions be effectively 'unlocked', instead of somewhat requiring character justification (per Dominian clothing and the rest)?

[EmperorVoyd]

Thank fuck, I'm glad art theft form other servers is finally being policed more, I've always been frustrated when I find out graphics and sprites and such are being ported from other servers yet we have people calling themselves sprite artists and  seem fine with literally stealing assets from other servers and that is some how considered an OK fulfillment of their "Sprite work". Keep it up!

 

[Skull132]

7 hours ago, EmperorVoyd said:

Thank fuck, I'm glad art theft form other servers is finally being policed more, I've always been frustrated when I find out graphics and sprites and such are being ported from other servers yet we have people calling themselves sprite artists and  seem fine with literally stealing assets from other servers and that is some how considered an OK fulfillment of their "Sprite work". Keep it up!

WELL. It's not that simple.

All sprites to SS13 are typically contributed under a specific form of the Creative Commons license, this means that using them for another project is perfectly fine, provided that the source of the sprites is credited somewhere (typically in the PR or changelog or both). If the artist does not agree with this, then they absolutely should not have licensed the sprites under said license in the first place! But the reason why we're not outright stopping sprite ports is due to our own lack of sprot manpower, realistically. We'll just be more selective, specially so with loadout items.

[Scheveningen]

What's being planned specifically to trim the bloat back? I figure that enforcing an embargo for an indeterminate period of time while we already have some offensive loadout items in place won't exactly fix the problem, even if it does stop it from growing for now. There's also the issue of how in-game equipment lockers have spare alternative outfits which lead to issues with visual fidelity and being able to pick out a security/engineering/medical/science team member from a crowd easily. What's going to be the fate of those?

I don't mind taking the middle road approach because it's a balance between two issues of 1. stealing the visual identity of other servers to incoherently mesh with our own and 2. still trying to make the game and its characters look good with a reasonable influx of content over time. 

[Arrow768]

The items available in the loadout (most importantly the uniforms) will be reviewed once the NBT hits.