Open and honest. (Done on yet another sleepless night)

[Lk600]

Hey, Lk here! Over half of you will most likely not have a clue who I am but, seeing as I've not been on for almost a year now, but I guess I should have done this when I l̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶... no... that's not right... put off playing on Aurora and disappeared.

I was with Aurora on startup. It was nice. Not so large population but enough for good role play, all with the same'ish' like minded taste to RP. Relatively long rounds with Extended being the round picked over anything else. More and more players showed up, meaning more people to talk to and more characters to discover and watch develop. It all came towards the, what I would call apex of enjoyment from Aurora. I had so much fun with my characters and got way more development on them than I had form any other Role Play server.

Then the issues came up. New players started showing up who were new to Role play. Nothing wrong there at all, don't get me wrong! We were all new once. But, when new players who had been playing for a few weeks had not improved at all were still on the server, It did get to me a little. I can't take drama. Being open and honest, I get anxiety attacks and take a lot to heart what then goes on to me going into depressive stages. I suck with antaging and can't stand it when a good calm round is ruined because my character was just ganked by some wizard or the station is suddenly nuked/ate by Nar'sie.

More and more people showed up and were always voting for Secret rounds, Nuke ops, cult. The less time I got to play on the server because Extended became less often. This then came to some of my friends on the server starting to disappear because of the same reasons. Slowly, it came to the point where I was getting more let down and becoming upset when in the lobby of Aurora than I did character development and enjoyment in the game.

Other people. I'm not doing this thread to point out anyone or to say that Aurora is bad and horrid... but I have been hurt a lot for being open in ooc and speaking out when I got upset. The worse of it was when my really in depth characters were being criticized. If you do know me, you will know that there are two unique characters I had, Amy Tilley and Anna Rose. Both live in a hospital for mental issues and are assistance on the station as a way of getting them integrated into society again. This is normal in the real world too, coming from first hand experience. It hurt me when people who never had any In character exposure to my characters saying, "Mental people wont be working on a station." A bit ironic to say however when there were so many other characters who were murderers and openly off the chart with insanity.

I left soon after that, hoping that after the summer and winter breaks the server would die down again and become fun to play on. I'm wanting to get back in on the server again as I miss it all. I miss the role play and character development. Life for me at the moment is up and down and role play is an awesome way for me to just ignore everything. Just... my play space is not fun to go to anymore.

Feeling bad, not slept, want to just open up a little bit (people who don't know me?.. I'm rarely open.) Take what you want from this, its just me finally saying what has been on my mind all this time and I'm soo not putting this up as a way of 'shitposting' or to trigger anyone. Love Lk <3 ^-^

[Frances]

Well, people will be merciless sometimes. If you want to fight for something you believe in, you're better off developing a thick skin.

Anyway, I remember you. Not sure if you remember me, but I've never had issues with seeing you around (though I might've bandwagoned a bit on the "assistants that don't assist" hate train. Though they really should assist.)

There have been two major shifts in Aurora since around/before the time you left. The first was a marked focus away from chair-RP, and towards more action-RP.

Action-RP is totally valid. You can perfectly have a Heavy-RP server, that has nuke rounds where people shoot each other to shit. And they roleplay around that, too. But it's obviously not the 24/7 extended kind of server (which is equally valid, but about something else). And Aurora has become about the former, not the latter. It's a shame for some, and has caused others to quit, although I still tend to find time to get some chair-RP in whenever I need. But I can tell you the server is currently the very same you wanted to leave, in that aspect.

The second shift, however, might be of more interest to you. I think people are relatively more tolerant of players carving their own paths away from the preset ideas of "ideal RP". There is a certain laissez-faire I am glad to see again, though not to an abusive extent. People are roleplaying fancier, quirkier characters, creating individuals and situations that wouldn't generally be seen in a "100% ordinary office life simulator", but still add a lot of fun to the game (we had a Tajaran mafia for a while, can you believe that?) I don't think someone coming onto the station with a non-debilitating mental illness would get crucified anymore, because frankly, who gives a shit?

So yeah, idk. Chair-RP isn't really getting hated on, but antags are running amok too, so you have to watch out for them. I think I'm very happy with the way the server has been doing. People are positive about most things, and in general, there is an excellent balance of most facets of Heavy-RP in what we're seeing. Of course, if you're preferring one of the extremes, this might not be your cup of tea.

[VoltageHero]

I recall Lk pretty well.

The shift from chair-RP is, in my opinion, something that really needed to happen. You got a lot of people sitting in their groups of 3-4 other people, and ignoring everybody else.

That said, as Frances states, chair-RP isn't really being 'banned' or destroyed, but it's just not as common as it used to be.

[Dea Tacita]

Indeed. Chair RP tended to exclude a lot of people, and while RP now probably still excludes a handful or two, i feel as if it's more inclusive and easier to integrate people into.

But yeah, we have plenty of chair RP sorts of moments, more in dead hour but also sprinkled throughout the day.

[Frances]

Well, since this is probably going to turn into a discussion about chair-RP (there's not much else to talk about),

I don't mind chair-RPers. Especially since they don't tend to really take up job slots, by nature. You always have a few people talking in medical, but that's because medical is boring until people start to die. Same goes for a lot of jobs, and when I see chair-RP, it tends to happen at the bar, between a diverse cast of crewmembers, ensuring no department gets effectively crippled, gameplay-wise.

The only issue has been with people who

1. Actively refuse to carry out their duties

2. Get upset when they get caught in crossfire from an antag, or join a round with antags, then try to avoid antags by locking themselves away in a little room before the action even hits

But I haven't seen either happen in a long time. I'm also not on staff anymore, so I get less chances to aghost around the station (well, I don't. I can't actually do that.) but I don't think that is as problematic as it used to be. The clarification on ERP rules (as well as our repeated clownings) probably helped too, because I seem to find the occasional engineer couple in maintenance far less often than I used to.

Edit: I've also never had that issue of "being excluded due to chair RP". Social rejection is a real-life dynamic, and it is perfectly natural for people to struggle at least somewhat with integrating themselves with station groups/cliques, if they're brand new. Again, people refusing to do their jobs/cooperate are the problem here, not people acting awkward because you just dropped into their conversation at the bar (though feel free to annoy the fuck out of them, if you feel so inclined).

[Lk600]

Kinda' didn't put this up to stir up anything about Chair rp... or ERP. >.>

But... guess its nice seeing you guys again too?.. right? :/

[mrimatool]

I used to feel the same way about antags as LK did, I despised them. But since my return I've got the mindset that I prefer the action over the chairs, the RP it creates can be much more interesting.

Anyway LK old friend, you've been missed and it'll be good to see you back on the server.

[Chaznoodles]

Good to see you again, LK, even if it's just for this! It's good to see you feel this is an issue and that you're bringing it up.

[NebulaFlare]

How can I forget you, LK? I was wondering what happened to Anna Rose.

There's still chair arpee. You just gotta ignore the chaos around sometimes. Pick jobs that are specifically focused on chair arpee, like engineering and bartending. Few games ago, I had awesome arpee as my roboticist Karima, Gavin Hice (another coworker who was currently working chef), and the IPCs Andy and Jack. We were debating about ingame research and stuff, for a good slot of the game. I don't think I even knew the roundtype until the very end.

I like nuke, traitor, and mutiny because...well...if done right, it can develop characters to great degrees. Karima found out how to be brave, Lori learned responsibility, Valary stopped being self-centered, Rose was less trigger-happy (she's still trigger happy), DragonSnap learned she could be appreciated as a synthetic, and Ajira is forever loyal to her duty (even if that duty is antag).

Anyway. I'm rambling. The goal of antag isn't to win it, it's to make the round interesting. It's better to fail and stimulate a great story, than to win all sneaky-sneaky - or blow up the station. I don't even call out on antags that often anymore, because it's going to go in the same ol' "suspicious, questioning, find contraband, link to syndie, permabrig" Boring.

"Why are you trying to steal the engine?"

"We're engine inspectors! Metal meat!"

"Did you just insult me? I am an IPC.."

"Engine is broken. See here and here?"

"...let me see that ID again...I seriously doubt-"

-surrounded by vox on all side-

"...bugger."

There's still good extended arpee, but it mostly happens during dead hour.

[Skull132]

Ah, the decisions me and YeahChris made. And their effects.

Aye, past a certain point in time, we started to actively move away from ChairRP. On a few cases, we may have pushed too hard, but I think you went inactive before those moments.

I don't know. You can have character development with action and antagonists. Obviously, some rounds will have to be scrubbed, because Wizards, but I think the end result is more fantastic than a story brought to heed in a sterile environment. Remember when David, Hazel and Mitsui worked security? Those few months were amazing. We had active antagonists, active rounds and plenty of situations where our character's lives were endangered and not everything went as planned (much to my chagrin while I played HoS, mind you). And the character development that stemmed from that, in my opinion, was amazing.

Oh and,

Hi, and welcome back.

[Nik]

I get that a lot, with the bad RP and new players. It's a thing you deal with, or you don't.

This is life.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

(we had a Tajaran mafia for a while, can you believe that?)

 

Meowfia*

And welcome back! I do remember Anna Rose, and I always wondered where she went. I missed your characters but never learned who played them until now.

We did have a shift away from chair-rp and extended. It comes with both good and bad, but the good that I was shooting for when I helped push the shift was a more tolerant server, and that's been emerging lately.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Ah, how could I forget Anna Rose? My favorite little bundle of neuroses. I remember being an admin and basically turning her into Alma from the FEAR series. T'was much fun.