Summary & Feedback (Dreary Futures)

[Caelphon]

Hey, you survived the 'Dreary Futures' arc! Well, most of you, anyway. This thread will serve as the central feedback thread for the entire arc, and will include a detailed summary of the events. 

Triogenix compiled the 'Dreary Futures' page, which gives additional information relating to arc (such as its events and news articles). 

 

[Diggey]

I, like problably some others, are still a little dissapointed in how drastically the arc changed into "FSF bullies Horizon" after two of their command members got merced in a revenge strike.

I get it.

i just feel like the direction that one event took as a result of very few people watching or beeing able to interfere shaping the entire arc for everyone (and Elyran based characters) wasn't good.

I am not here to make up an excuse or write an alternate plot that "would have totally been better you guys"

I am just stating that that one part did not go well.

Not sure what could have been done instead.

[WAYRT]

 

44 minutes ago, Diggey said:

i just feel like the direction that one event took as a result of very few people watching or beeing able to interfere shaping the entire arc for everyone (and Elyran based characters) wasn't good.

I agree with Diggey's point. The whole arc was focused entirely for Command characters (All aboard, Close to the Sun, Forceful Introduction) and security characters (Redocking). Only time non-security and non-command character happened to get involved, aside from just sitting in cover, watching FSF drink for free in the bar in All Aboard or prepare for the Ambassador's tour that stopped after two departments due to time limits, was during the Eclipse's mutiny, and even there it was a complete deviation from the narrative. 

P.s. whoever made that summary is a huge FSF simp 
Get mutinied Sollie 😎

Edited September 27, 2022 by WAYRT
expanded the part regarding the non-sec/non-command characters, still no impact aside from Eclipse's mutiny

[CourierBravo]

I just don't get it. I feel like the arc really went nowhere. I feel like nothing in game has changed except for parts of deck 3 getting damaged . In terms of crew interactions, I feel like the whole arc only saw Command and Security interaction. Arguably medical as well, because they have to haul off the wounded. The Mutiny felt like the most crew involvement for the whole thing. NanoTrasen finding phoron, and sending off the Horizon didn't even amount to anything game play wise too. We never actually found asteroids or planets with phoron outside of the heph facility, nor was there any events exploring phoron rich areas like we saw with the Clandestine incident.

And at the end of this, I just. I don't know. I just don't even have words other than I need a break. This doesn't feel like the Aurora I remember when I joined the server two years ago.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Bejewledpot
grammar changes bc my grammar is bad.

[CourierBravo]

Also, events with the Caraviaggo just felt bad. Like, I wasn't expecting them to turn into the antagonists, I thought they were being set up to be the aid to the ship. It felt like an unneeded plot twist/allegiance flip.

[Scheveningen]

I'd prefer in the future if we avoid Sol Marines or their equivalent in events for awhile. This was not a bad arc necessarily but I hope we don't actually visit anywhere remotely related to the Wildlands for a bit, considering how grating being involved in HoI4-like foreign politics has been for awhile.

[nickiskool]

Personally I liked the arc. It proves how ineffective the SCCV Horizon is. Can't wait to see what you guys do next! Though I do wish there was more exploring

[Dreamix]

My thoughts on...

Episode One: All Aboard:
I played my XO on this one. I feel like the reason for the failure of this event was the absolute beast of a miscommunication between command, about what is going on, and how we are supposed to do it. I cannot really pinpoint who or what specifically could be blamed for this, but just like, it happened. I don't really have much to say here tbh.

Episode Two: Redocking:
I played my XO, but have lost the roll and went as off-duty, and ghosted shortly into the round because I realized there would be nothing for me to do except to sit in the bar. The worst event imo. I would not like to see a similar one, ever. Specifically one where the map is changed to an event-only map, that is not Horizon, and such map is, to put it bluntly, just bad, unfinished, barely functional, done on a very short notice, etc. I have already talked about this in that event's feedback thread, so yeah. On Horizon, even if the event involves only a small part of the crew, everyone else still can be doing their own jobs, as on every normal round. On an event-only map like this one, everyone non-involved gets to sit and do boring roleplay. Of course, here people who were not security, or were security but off-duty, could pick up a gun and fight as well, or form a militia, and they did these things. But really, there is only so many guns for a militia, and not every character is combat-capable or even willing to fight, and not every player enjoys it or is willing to potentially lose their character to death. If the map was like, more complete, I could see it going much better. There's also other issue that other people have mentioned in this event's feedback thread, like Horizon getting weak weapons (even if only just being perceived as weak), or FSF getting no security of their own to protect their officers.

Episode Three: A Forceful Introduction:
I played my XO here. This was. Dunno. Mixed feelings. This was definitely railroaded, with the FSF aiming their guns and torpedoes at many critical areas of Horizon, and our residental deck also, which we have no way to defend or rescue people from. It could have been a bluff of course, but we had no way to know that. There was no way anyone was going to choose fighting the FSF. Also only the captain was involved in negotiations with the FSF. Not "basically pretty much only", but literally. I as XO was not even involved in paying them, and afterwards when I asked, I was told that it was already handled. But in general, the base of the event was very cool I think, and served to turn the crew against the FSF, even if railroady.

Episode Four: Close to the Sun:
I played my XO on this one. This was fine. Though, all of command was forced to be in the meeting room, and it was clear not everyone enjoyed that, like the Tajara CMO who I think was prety much the least qualified person to talk to Elyran diplomats I could think of, especially since the Elyran "interstellar relations" page literally says, Elyra does not care about Adhomai. So basically, I don't think anyone should be like, forced to attend to any meetings or talks or whatever else.

Episode Five: Eclipse Protocol:
I played my XO there. The best event so far, mostly because of the mutiny, which I consider myself to be one of the main reasons for it happening at all. The mutiny was awesome, was played out well, had great escalation, was believable, and will continue to have much greater impact than any character's death. However, I do not appreciate the summaries and the like mentioning a "mutiny" or "sedition", or command staff "bickering", or that Ahkam was made interim captain. I think it's really shitty to portray all of this like this, as if it was wrong to play it out like that on a OOC level, while the investigation is still going on and CCIAA might see it differently. It is very one-sided, and influences how people are going to perceive it, both OOC and IC, and I do not like this. OOC summaries should be impartial and objective, and IC ones should not be provided until the investigation actually concludes.

 

 

My thoughts on...

Elyra:
I am just really sad that we are most likely not going to go there. Lots of people were looking forward to exploring Elyra I feel. It is cool, and could meaningfully involve lots of characters. It was fun seeing people talk IC about shore leave, getting the tourist visas or whatever. And I feel like we have had some new Elyran chars being created just for this. It's sad, overall.

FSF:
Some event runners/participants were/are trying very hard to justify or explain the actions of FSF, or make them seem like actual characters to care about. But like, that's just not going to happen, sorry. No one is going to remember or care about Corporal Vlatko Markovic or Commander Pieter du Plessis, and I see no reason why they should. I've also seen people to push the idea that siding with the FSF was the only good choice, as if it was an undeniable fact, and making it seem as if anyone choosing differently was wrong or ruined the event. Also forgetting or omitting the fact of FSF threatening us with death and destruction, and that the whole "escort" was actually extortion, and the "mercenaries" were pirates. Also I think, lots of people are getting mixed signals and confusion about FSF as a whole. Is this FSF ship completely independent from all the other FSF ships? Or is FSF actually an organization? Which is it? If all FSF ships are independent from each other, then why is there a FSF at all, and why are they not just, random independent mercenaries instead? I've seen people many times say OOC and IC that everyone is going to hate FSF now, and then someone else always comes by saying that it was a single FSF ship and does not represent FSF as a whole, and no one is going to care or remember this.

Involving mostly only security and command:
All of the events here did that. That is the truth. I was playing my XO, so I did enjoy the events and was involved in the them, but I could see non-command non-security chars being almost completely left out of the whole thing, barely getting any meaningful interactions above what they get in a normal low-action round. And even then, not even all of command got involved in the things. See episode three and four. Please don't hit me with the "but not every event can involve everyone!". That is true, but this however is feedback as asked. Everyone wants to be involved somehow, no matter what job they are playing - and not everyone can be command or security, or enjoys these roles.

Exploration:
There was none, unfortunately, in this event arc. It is very unfortunate how an exploration ship does basically no exploration, and in the end, we have not ever investigated the phoron deposit that we were teased with in the first event. I was hoping for us to get some boots on the ground on some huge asteroid with lots of phoron, and that would have been a nice resolution to the arc - something like, nice, for characters to remember.

Overall:
As I said, I was playing my XO, so I did enjoy this. But I could see many reasons for why other people with different characters, would not enjoy it. Outside of my own enjoyment, I also think this was a good arc overall, even if a bit incomplete, and with some rougher edges.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Dreamix

[Gem]

my feedback is that i'm not really a fan of the focus on security and command during events. everyone else is basically left to find their own fun and/or treat the round as extended.

the redocking event wasn't enjoyable on my part. 2 tile wide hallways and extremely long distances to walk with unclear locations (though written by someone on the floor, thank you whoever did that) made the map very exhausting to navigate. the bar was also copypasted from the Aurora and had no event staff manning it (as far as i could see), which made for a confusing "relaxing spot" experience.

i also found it unenjoyable that the Caravaggio or whats-its-name turned on the ship, activated its guns, and basically amounted to "comply or die", even if this wasn't the case OOCly, as came forward after that event round finished.

overall, i don't feel that the event really changed anything. i think Dreamy elaborates on it really well above.

[KingOfThePing]

A lot of feedback has already been said. I especially agree with Bewejeldpot.

To summarize my thoughts:

• The arc went nowehere, really: It felt it served as a catalyst to write some news articles, which, lets be real, the majority does not read and ultimately dont really matter in-game in 90% of the cases.
• The arc was not engaging: No one except Command had any engagement in this. Why would they. The crew was technically not really needed. The outcomes would have been similar if you would have put command with [the opposing party] into a room and let them play by themselves for 2 hours. The only exception to this was the large scale mutiny in the last event but this is another can of worms I'd rather not open here.
• The new setting's possibilities have not been used: The biggest change from the Aurora is, that we can actually go places. We didnt do this. Why not see some elyran outpost/village and an embassy. Why not actually go somewhere, instead of letting people come to the Horizon. Wasn't the premise to find new phoron sites and that some signals have been picked up? Why not let crew gather together, go there and have the conflict, if there needs to be one, there, instead of on the Horizon.
• New planet introductions: I am honest here, I didnt follow enough to know if this was warranted due to the arc (I doubt it but correct me if I am wrong) but personally I wouldnt cram the revelation/addition of new planets (in this case, San Collete and Port Antilla) during big canon arcs. Feels wrong.
• Abrupt conflict: The conflict felt kinda sudden. This may be due to how the game is structured but I wouldnt have thought the FSF would turn on the crew. Why would they. They have been paid TWICE and attacking the SCC's prime flagship would surely get you killed faster than you can imagine.

 

My closing thought is that this was, by far, the most unengaging arc I have experienced so far, mostly due to the facts that the possibilities of the new setting have not been utilized at all. All in all it just felt hollow and rushed. I personally am also not a fan of the bi-weekly event format, which may also be a reason why it felt rushed. Take your time next time and dont feel urged to hold any deadlines. Since there are none.

Edited September 28, 2022 by KingOfThePing

[MattAtlas]

46 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

New planet introductions: I am honest here, I didnt follow enough to know if this was warranted due to the arc (I doubt it but correct me if I am wrong) but personally I wouldnt cram the revelation/addition of new planets (in this case, San Collete and Port Antilla) during big canon arcs. Feels wrong.

Planets are released as they are made/reviewed and arcs don't matter for their release -- both of these planets have nothing to do with this arc. I don't see why they would either.

[Caelphon]

I must outline something:

Dreary Futures is part one of a trilogy of arcs, that plans to expand the phoron scarcity within the Orion Spur. Part two is coming up very soon, and is likely to launch within the next month. We require some assets, and we're slowly getting them done. 

I understand that there seems to be a feeling that the arc went no where, but the plan is that it set the field for what to expect during the next two arcs. At the end of the second arc, this should be much more clearer and help give a better, clearer picture. 

[KingOfThePing]

6 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

Planets are released as they are made/reviewed and arcs don't matter for their release -- both of these planets have nothing to do with this arc. I don't see why they would either.

It is only my personal opinion that I feel like it shouldn't be while major arcs are on-going. It takes away from the arc that is going on. It does not really matter if they are directly related to the arc or not. It is only a minor thing to critique. I dont know the timetable on when things are done or when they should be released. I just found it a bit distracting.

[MattAtlas]

7 minutes ago, KingOfThePing said:

It is only my personal opinion that I feel like it shouldn't be while major arcs are on-going. It takes away from the arc that is going on. It does not really matter if they are directly related to the arc or not. It is only a minor thing to critique. I dont know the timetable on when things are done or when they should be released. I just found it a bit distracting.

How is it distracting? The planets have nothing to do with the arc and don't tie into them. Planets are also not that large and generally only require 30-40 minutes of reading. Nor are you obligated to read a planet when it immediately gets released.

[Kintsugi]

I volunteered for every event instead of playing them as my ship character, so my feedback might be in a different category - but I rather liked this arc. It may not have been the most "out there" of arcs, but I think it told the story it wished to tell well and it did so in a way that had a dynamic narrative constantly being changed and influenced by the crew's actions. My only real complaints are that it felt maybe a little short, as far as arcs go, and that there was perhaps a bit too much time between individual events (I also think in retrospect using the Caravaggio's weapons to threaten the Horizon instead of individual event characters was a misstep, but a forgiveable one.). The content itself was great, however. All-in-all - a solid, well-rounded arc, that I think will be remembered fondly.

[NotASpider]

Med main here, I only enjoyed the last round in the arc. It seems like med always gets shafted in events because everyone's scared to be robust now that death has consequences. Having two rival teams of what were basically NPCs fixed that right up, plus the mutiny was enjoyable.

100% agree with others though, that there were no consequences of this arc happening other than the few character deaths. The only time I ever hear this being mentioned ICly is specifically in reference to the mutiny. Storywriting 101 is to know where you want to end up before you start, and most of this event felt way more akin to an on-the-fly gimmick thought up during a heist or merc round.

[CourierBravo]

On 28/09/2022 at 06:22, Caelphon said:

I understand that there seems to be a feeling that the arc went no where, but the plan is that it set the field for what to expect during the next two arcs. At the end of the second arc, this should be much more clearer and help give a better, clearer picture. 

I think some re-analyzing of how to achieve a multi part narrative setup should be looked into. Because ultimately, this arc didn’t achieve much narrative buildup for anyone but command and event volunteers. The picture really shouldn’t be so blurry at the end of the arc. Ultimately, we’re where we started but with temporarily one less place to explore. 
 

If you want my frank recommendation, you need to recruit more human lore people, and preferably people who have different ideas than the past and current 4 have. Human lore has been largely stagnant because 3 people cannot reasonably tackle it. It’s such a monumental undertaking. And i think you, Cael, focusing on developing a new unrelated human planet while in the middle of the arc was a huge detriment to it. Please consider widening your pool of devs and the idea pools to draw in from. 

[Sycmos]

I participated in approximately none of the events, and have only have secondhand experience as someone who has characters that work and live on the Horizon - adjacent to people who actually participated (none of the events were within my schedule). Thus far, just from this secondhand experience alone, I would not say that any of the events affected my characters in a positive manner, if anything discoloring their attitude about working on the Horizon and generally souring their attitude about not being able to visit Elyra. I had made plans for two characters to do things with other characters while in the system and those were immediately dashed upon realizing we had become persona non grata in the very space that the arc had been setting us towards. It sucks. There's no other way to put it. If there are going to be events like this for each system we enter and we have to make some catastrophic decision at the end then soon enough there will be nowhere to visit because we've blundered through space until everyone hated us.

I'm not interested in getting into pissing matches with every military in the Spur. I want my characters to have actually enriching experiences with the lore established in these places. Stopping by Mictlan on the way out was cool. More of that would be nice for characters to have some kind of beneficial experience so they're not burned out on every arc from bad encounters with people who want their money or their lives.

[ClemTheDuck]

On 28/09/2022 at 22:07, KingOfThePing said:

 

• The arc went nowehere, really: It felt it served as a catalyst to write some news articles, which, lets be real, the majority does not read and ultimately dont really matter in-game in 90% of the cases.
• The arc was not engaging: No one except Command had any engagement in this. Why would they. The crew was technically not really needed. The outcomes would have been similar if you would have put command with [the opposing party] into a room and let them play by themselves for 2 hours. The only exception to this was the large scale mutiny in the last event but this is another can of worms I'd rather not open here.
• The new setting's possibilities have not been used: The biggest change from the Aurora is, that we can actually go places. We didnt do this. Why not see some elyran outpost/village and an embassy. Why not actually go somewhere, instead of letting people come to the Horizon. Wasn't the premise to find new phoron sites and that some signals have been picked up? Why not let crew gather together, go there and have the conflict, if there needs to be one, there, instead of on the Horizon.

i agree with what Ping wrote here, especially in regards to the new setting not being utilised. Part of what makes the jump to a ship, (flagship of the exploration efforts at that) is that we have reason to now be going out and engaging with the very lore that is being written, and we can actually go and see the wake and effect that lore arcs have on the spur. This arc didnt really feel that much different from an arc on the Aurora, in terms of setting and narrative.

[CampinKiller]

I liked that the arc gave the crew an ability to actually determine where it went. I feel like some of the criticism of the arc having no direction is because the crew took that freedom, and essentially chose the weirdest, and most unexpected options. Take the event where the SFA captured and killed the FSF CO and XO. Security surrendered without a fight, and basically allowed the SFA to do as they pleased, despite it having been noted that the SFA team would've been easy to defeat. Then they wait until the SFA has killed the two people in charge of protecting them, and finally fight back, and steal phoron from the SFA. It baffles me that people are still surprised at the FSF being upset by that, though I do agree that the subsequent event could have been handled in a much better manner, than the railroaded "fuck around and find out" option. Even with the final event, multiple people on the lore team can speak to not remotely expecting the outcome in the slightest. And it's certainly having an effect - at least one character has been arrested, and I'd be shocked if at least 2-3 more are not gone for good, and these are not characters that have been played once or twice. Overall, even though I only got to play one of the events, I think the arc was good, provided the crew with the freedom to choose what happens instead of getting railroaded (mostly), has set up some future things for the Horizon (guns??), and is going to have lasting effects on the crew and the ship as a result.

On 28/09/2022 at 04:56, Dreamix said:

However, I do not appreciate the summaries and the like mentioning a "mutiny" or "sedition", or command staff "bickering", or that Ahkam was made interim captain. I think it's really shitty to portray all of this like this, as if it was wrong to play it out like that on a OOC level, while the investigation is still going on and CCIAA might see it differently. It is very one-sided, and influences how people are going to perceive it, both OOC and IC, and I do not like this. OOC summaries should be impartial and objective, and IC ones should not be provided until the investigation actually concludes.

Having read the summaries, I don't really think anyone was portraying it all as wrong to occur OOC'ly. At least it read to me as just an objective recounting of events, and even the IC summary kept things strictly to the facts. It might sound bad, but yes, disobeying the orders of a Captain and installing an off-duty one in his place is mutiny according to the regulations, so to describe it as one OOC'ly isn't saying it was wrong, so much as it is what happened. 

[Montyfatcat]

3 minutes ago, CampinKiller said:

I liked that the arc gave the crew an ability to actually determine where it went. I feel like some of the criticism of the arc having no direction is because the crew took that freedom, and essentially chose the weirdest, and most unexpected options.

From what I understand, and from what I've heard IC as well as OOC, the crew more seized the ability to determine the direction of the arc at the very end. Between WAYRT being a logistics god to raise the unreasonable sum that the FSF demanded within an hour, the captain changing for each event and the crew performing an unplanned mutiny/vote-of-no-confidence in the final event, I'd say that stuff was more jerked around because it feels like the team underestimated or underplanned for the crew to do more than they did. Player agency had to be taken by force in the end, and the majority of the events seemed to be directed by either whichever captain was in charge at the time or the rigid plan of the lore team (eg the original admiral refusing to evacuate and instead standing to fight at a disadvantage).

My feedback to the event team is to organise the command structure more for multi-event arcs, as well as to consider what the bare minimum amount of departments needed to have the intended effect of the event is. For example on this arc, the captain that ended up causing the mutiny was the captain that was not present for any of the other events, leading to them implicitly trusting the FSF and not realising how much extortion was going on beforehand. Also relating to this arc, many of the events would have gone the exact same if the command staff and security had buggered off to a private server for a while and came back to announce what happend.

Lore wise, it also doesn't add up all that well. Why would the FSF try to extort the faction that are their only backers in the entire spur? Why would the SCC not immediately terminate the contract after the first instances of looting on the ship, and opt for using one of their own fleets of friendly ships to escort the Horizon? In fact, why is the Horizon even going into this alone in the first place?

[MattAtlas]

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

the captain changing for each event

How would you keep one captain for each event? Not everyone can always attend events (timeslots for the event itself can vary, discounting possible emergencies or extra work for the player in question), and even not counting that, would you really want us to go down the route of bwoinking captain players to not roll for this event "because we already picked a captain"?

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

I'd say that stuff was more jerked around because it feels like the team underestimated or underplanned for the crew to do more than they did

What the crew did was unplanned, but that doesn't mean it was wrong. It was an outcome like all the others -- we can't predict every single scenario, nor would anyone at the time have reasonably predicted that the crew would betray both factions.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

Player agency had to be taken by force in the end

This paints an unnecessarily (and frankly, is actually a lie) hostile picture of events. You are trying to create a problem where there is none. Characters were not railroaded and the fact that we cooperated with their choice means that they always had agency in the matter.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

the rigid plan of the lore team (eg the original admiral refusing to evacuate and instead standing to fight at a disadvantage)

Again you are trying to imply that things were railroaded -- they were not. All characters in the events were written as characters that do certain things because of how they are. Prideful solarians (especially an admiral) being unwilling to retreat isn't rigidity, it's the lore team playing a character.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

My feedback to the event team is to organise the command structure more for multi-event arcs

It isn't reasonable at all for us to select a team of five people and have them show up literally for every single event while blocking others from participating. It'd be railroading in the opposite direction and completely unfair.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

leading to them implicitly trusting the FSF and not realising how much extortion was going on beforehand

They knew the extortion that was happening as we made it very, very clear to them that what we were demanding was the result of the sum of what happened beforehand.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

many of the events would have gone the exact same if the command staff and security had buggered off to a private server for a while

Dennis Linton and Kei Nakai are not command characters yet changed much more in the arc than quite literally all Command players put together in the grand scheme of things.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

Why would the FSF try to extort the faction that are their only backers in the entire spur?

The FSF is not a unitary, centralized faction, it's an umbrella term for a lot of mercenary fleets.  The FSF wouldn't care because there's no centralized government or anything. It's just what a random fleet is doing. If anything the Caravaggio itself might care.

1 hour ago, Montyfatcat said:

hy would the SCC not immediately terminate the contract after the first instances of looting on the ship, and opt for using one of their own fleets of friendly ships to escort the Horizon?

The Horizon didn't get looted, mind you, it stole phoron stores which were then demanded back by the Caravaggio. As for why it isn't using its own fleets to escort the Horizon, how does a narrative become better with a mcguffin that solves all issues and doesn't allow any sort of standoff or hostile confrontation? The simple answer is that it doesn't and the Horizon being alone is one of the few reasons that it provides a unique dynamic -- characters can't just go "oh the Icarus will save us!" and fuck off to their rooms to brood over the mutiny happening upstairs. It being alone is why characters are forced to take action and this is not something that can be given up.

[Peppermint]

I didn't play a single one, so feel free to brush over it. I did observe here and there when I had time, and chatted with others who also played. I agree there were problems and Ping summed them up nicely, and I agree work still needs to be done. However, most arcs recently have been so incredibly, painfully railroaded with admin spawn gear, no crew interaction, and zero real choice that this one seemed like a breath of fresh air. Actual consequences to play out, make choices around, and participate in? Gasp! A step in the right direction for sure, even if there's always going to be something left to learn.

Whilst most people are already doing so, would also point out that running these things is a lot of work and nobody is owed an arc. Kind words are the way forwards.

[Montyfatcat]

36 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

How would you keep one captain for each event? Not everyone can always attend events

I'm under the impression that there's a command discord used for people with a whitelist, right? Posting the event dates and asking if anyone is available on those days would be the best option, and failing that then reserving the slot in advance of each event and properly briefing the captain beforehand.

40 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

we can't predict every single scenario, nor would anyone at the time have reasonably predicted that the crew would betray both factions.

This point was more based around one of the OMs raising the 80k for the contract in record time, which was frankly a very small amount. I was more asking for mechanical capabilities and people's understanding of their jobs to be taken more into account.

43 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

Characters were not railroaded and the fact that we cooperated with their choice means that they always had agency in the matter.

Agency was out of the hands of the majority of the crew for all but the last event, this thread alone proves that many people feel this way with much of the positive feedback coming from people that actually had the chance to directly impact the story (namely, security/command/event characters). Of course the mutiny was co-operated with because what kind of message would that send if it wasn't? The direction of the events themselves, however, took much of the power out of the hands of the crew and placed it squarely in the control of the command staff. This may not have been intentional, and may have exposed a flaw in the structure and culture surrounding the command whitelist instead, but is nonetheless happened.

48 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

Prideful solarians (especially an admiral) being unwilling to retreat isn't rigidity,

The lore team are the ones that wrote such a character, this is the equivalent of a dnd player saying "it's what my character would do" when what their character did is still a questionable choice. They have still written the character, and are still culpable for how that character's writing has affected the agency and enjoyment of other players.

52 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

It isn't reasonable at all for us to select a team of five people and have them show up literally for every single event while blocking others from participating.

In a per arc basis, or even simply "this event requires understanding of the last few events", asking that the people involved beforehand get priority seems perfectly reasonable. Briefings and communication would fill in fine if you don't want to keep a persistent command staff for an event. A request for more organisation is not immediately a request to restrict the roles in their entirety.

53 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

They knew the extortion that was happening as we made it very, very clear to them that what we were demanding was the result of the sum of what happened beforehand.

The impression given at the time was that they were totally unaware, and that the captain was treating the crew as if they were being totally unreasonable for being sick of having the ship boarded and stripped of resources every two weeks.

55 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

Dennis Linton and Kei Nakai are not command characters yet changed much more in the arc than quite literally all Command players put together in the grand scheme of things.

Their effect was almost entirely felt within the final event, which is the one that broke this pattern of command and security dominance in the arc. Not only that, I specified command and security in my response, Nakai being an incredibly important character as well as security leaves only Dennis, a character that is already known for being an issue to command and exacerbating crew feeling to an extreme (as seen when he hid MMIs from Zavodskoi).

56 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

The FSF is not a unitary, centralized faction, it's an umbrella term for a lot of mercenary fleets.  The FSF wouldn't care because there's no centralized government or anything. It's just what a random fleet is doing. If anything the Caravaggio itself might care.

Which again raises the question of why the SCC is operating with them if they are so volatile, as well as why they are considered a mostly unified group during the majority of newspaper articles.

 

57 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

The Horizon didn't get looted, mind you, it stole phoron stores which were then demanded back by the Caravaggio.

From what I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, the phoron was taken from bandits, bandits which were fended off by ship security over the protection provided by the FSF. Caravaggio then claimed that they were owed the phoron stores as compensation. This would come under looting in my opinion, as they were taking property that was not explicitly labelled as theirs.

1 hour ago, MattAtlas said:

As for why it isn't using its own fleets to escort the Horizon, how does a narrative become better with a mcguffin that solves all issues and doesn't allow any sort of standoff or hostile confrontation? The simple answer is that it doesn't and the Horizon being alone is one of the few reasons that it provides a unique dynamic -- characters can't just go "oh the Icarus will save us!" and fuck off to their rooms to brood over the mutiny happening upstairs. It being alone is why characters are forced to take action and this is not something that can be given up.

First off the bat, that is not the correct definition of a macguffin. Macguffins by definition do absolutely nothing, and their purpose in the plot is merely to be desired. If an object is wanted by multiple groups and plays no other role in the plot, it is a macguffin. A better example of a macguffin in Aurora would be the phoron reserves that Caravaggio took, as they only acted as an object to be desired. The term you probably meant is a magic bullet, which is also not inherently harmful to a narrative if used properly.

Second off, an escorting fleet does not automatically disqualify conflict from the narrative unless the conflict is purely military and ship based. In the same way that a threat to the aurora, which was within range of the Icarus and Odin at all times, wasn't automatically dismissed by a hail of gunfire from one of them at the approaching threat. Conflict can be driven from an escorting fleet even, for example the Elyrans demanding that armed ships be left behind if the Horizon comes any close to the border, or a fleet later being assigned when the FSF is labelled as rogue. This could lead to a hostage situation once the escorting ship is defeated, and cause a different kind of conflict that would not leave the crew thinking "why don't we just cancel this contract and leave them in the dust?". (This was not written by me, this was a friend coming up with something on the fly)

Third and finally, characters take action because their players WANT them to. People will still cryo out of events regardless of if it makes sense or not, having more or less narrative stakes won't change that. In the same way, people know that no event will be a server ender because it's a server and nobody wants the story to end just yet. If people are going away from the event, they simply just don't enjoy the event enough to stay, and no amount of mincing of lore will change that.

[CampinKiller]

27 minutes ago, Montyfatcat said:

I'm under the impression that there's a command discord used for people with a whitelist, right? Posting the event dates and asking if anyone is available on those days would be the best option, and failing that then reserving the slot in advance of each event and properly briefing the captain beforehand.

There isn't, unless I've never been invited in years of playing command. Also, I am typically busy on the weekends, so for me to have to either A. Commit to 4-5 weeks of wedging in a 3 hour timeslot for an event because I was (un)lucky enough to be chosen to be event command, or B. Not get to play the arc as my character (in their normal role) at all because someone else rolled for HoS on event 1 would simply be ridiculous. You'd be locking players out of their roles/characters for a very poor reason, and opening it up to a whole host of issues (favoritism, people being unavailable last minute, etc.). Also, Triogenix posted updates after the significant events that command players would ICly know, so it's not like people were not aware.

27 minutes ago, Montyfatcat said:

The impression given at the time was that they were totally unaware, and that the captain was treating the crew as if they were being totally unreasonable for being sick of having the ship boarded and stripped of resources every two weeks.

While I'm not saying this is/isn't what happened, or anyone wasn't entitled to their opinions, the was the first time that heavy of demands had been made, and the 2nd time they demanded more payment. Not exactly like this had gone on for a very long time.

27 minutes ago, Montyfatcat said:

Their effect was almost entirely felt within the final event, which is the one that broke this pattern of command and security dominance in the arc. Not only that, I specified command and security in my response, Nakai being an incredibly important character as well as security leaves only Dennis, a character that is already known for being an issue to command and exacerbating crew feeling to an extreme (as seen when he hid MMIs from Zavodskoi).

I disagree - their effect is still being felt right now, as a CCIA investigation continues, Linton was only arrested 2-3 days ago, and there's still the pending outcomes for several characters facing consequences for their actions.

27 minutes ago, Montyfatcat said:

Agency was out of the hands of the majority of the crew for all but the last event, this thread alone proves that many people feel this way with much of the positive feedback coming from people that actually had the chance to directly impact the story (namely, security/command/event characters).

Are we not entitled to our opinions based on what we play? Frankly, the "issue" of events focusing on command and security more often than not is because that is how the ship, roles, HRP, etc. are set up. Sure, some things could probably be done to involve others, but anything that happens on the ship is going to involve command at a minimum. Security typically gets involved because a lot of times they involve high-profile people, some amount of violence, investigations, etc. I'm sorry, but a high intensity event is going to most likely involve security and command, because it wouldn't make much sense for your local hangar tech to fight the Elyrans or FSF. I feel like people were involved just by being on the ship. Take the event I liked the least, the Caravaggio's armament being directed at the Horizon, you had engineering make a damage control area, people were deeply affected by the threat, some were even antagonizing the FSF. Every event cannot directly involve every member of the crew, though. To be honest, if you're playing as say, a chef, I don't know what you expect though.

Edited September 29, 2022 by CampinKiller