Sputnik5927 - On the topic of the Horizon's militarization and event direction

[Kintsugi]

2 minutes ago, ErshOurHerzog said:

Nah, there is no need. It wouldn't work, because it is, again, too much time. Admins can't schedule events everyday. So, we just need to code the game to have these off-ship roles suffer. Make them suffer if the scarcity is so bad. Give them only one canister of fuel, make their phoron tanks almost empty, take away their eqipment so these off-ship roles have a sense of scarcity.

For example -- make some tajara smuggler ship always low on fuel so they need to contact the Horizon as soon as possible to trade with them. 

Make the SFA ship struggle with weapons and ammo. Give them only one gun and little food for an entire crew of, like, 5 people? 

The majority of the off-ship roles don't even really need to go out in the space because they have everything on the spot: food, water, equipment, EVERYTHING. So yeah, to solve the dissonance we're having with the current situation in the Spur we must make all the off-ship roles suffer! Why do every one of these smuggling ships have a cafeteria and a small kitchen? They should eat shit! 

The tone of this post is vaguely sardonic/mocking so I can’t tell if this is a joke or not - but many of the ships were intentionally  under geared and undersupplied for the longest time. The general consensus is that this just made them unpleasant to play, and so gradually we’ve been making them better-equipped.

[ErshOurHerzog]

9 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

The tone of this post is vaguely sardonic/mocking so I can’t tell if this is a joke or not

It is not a joke. I played the off-ship roles for an entire day past week and we didn't have any problems as the Skrell smugglers or the Tajara smugglers. We had a kitchen, a full cargo hold full of everything you want: weapons, equipment, sometimes food, even a hydroponic tray for making drugs.

9 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

unpleasant to play, and so gradually we’ve been making them better-equipped

This seems to me like the biggest mistake. How can you expect a player to believe in the hard times the universe is facing when they have a 'pleasant' time playing an off-ship role that was supposed to be struggling? I mean, yeah, sometimes off-ship dudes docked to the Horizon for resupply and all that, even traded goods for that resupply, but it doesn't happen very often. In fact -- it is rare, because players only wanted to do a gimmick like that. Again, I'm speaking from my own experience.

The Universe is an unforgiving place. Don't make it a walk in the park. especially in badlands

Edited December 5, 2022 by ErshOurHerzog

[Peppermint]

I've not played this arc, but I've watched rounds here and there so take my experiences with a grain of salt. That said, I generally feel the issue here is that people don't really know what they want. Prior to this we've had entirely non-combat, non-risk events and most of them were complained about for being boring and railroad-y. We've had combat events and people didn't like them because they were scared of losing characters. People really just don't seem to have a good grasp on what they want an event to give to them, and so I'd implore people giving feedback to say more about what they do want - such as those using the kotw arc as a comparison point. 

I do agree with the dissatisfaction of the increased milsim nature - or, really, the 'threat' of it if that makes sense? More and more, I look at Aurora discussions and there will be people wanting militry ranks, different general quarter alerts, ect, ect, and I have to say it's a bit worrying as that would completely end any interest I had in the server. That said, nothing much there has actually really happened? We have guns now and whilst I do have my own criticisms there (The Horizon is giga ridiculously silly strong and will murder anything and everything if played by competent people), it's been a fun addition. 

The general barrier it feels here is lack of content. We don't have many interesting exo planets. People often talk about how much they miss what Bay does with theirs, and we don't have anything similar here. But there just aren't that many people adding things - mapping is not very hard and the community is lovely with offering help. If you see a gap, maybe taking some personal responsibility and adding it yourself would be nice. I would also love many interesting exo planets to explore, fun away ships to mess around in ect, but that times a lot of time and effort - being a ship actively exploring for phoron is great, but we still have barriers when it comes to content right now, as NBT hasn't really been fully done for that long.

I do feel there has been a certain lack of willingness to listen to feedback taken on by certain members of the lore team, and there has been some poor attitudes here and there on both sides - but that's what happens when people don't use their nice words and completely pile on people whilst telling them how hostile they are and how shit their events are, ect. Obviously everyone is passionate, but putting that passion into something constructive is better. It's so saddening to see people attack the dev team for not being approachable (????) when you can just look into the code channel and see how willing to help people are. Or the lore team for dismissing concerns they'd probably be more receptive to listening to if they weren't being told their ideas should be used as toilet paper. It's ridiculous. Be polite, and you'll get much further.

This bizarre 'the staff is out to get us' talk is very self-obsessed and straight up weird. I really implore people who feel like that to actually try and engage with folks more, take a look at staff complaints and how problematic staff members have been handled, and maybe consider joining one of the teams - people are nice, promise.

That said, this talk of telling people to hold off on their feedback is just as worrying. People giving feedback should be encouraged and this 'wait for the end of the arc' when people are already not having fun is just as silly, and makes it feel like issues are being dismissed. Especially when it feels like there's been attempts to shut conversations down and wait for official channels fairly regularly here and now, though my memory is a bit spotty and I could be entirely misremembering.

Tl;DR. Catch more flies with honey. Milsim bad, no more of it please but right now it's probably okay. KOTW event good as lots of variety.

[Faye <3]

28 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

I do agree with the dissatisfaction of the increased milsim nature - or, really, the 'threat' of it if that makes sense? More and more, I look at Aurora discussions and there will be people wanting militry ranks, different general quarter alerts, ect, ect, and I have to say it's a bit worrying as that would completely end any interest I had in the server

agree with this very much. the guns are fine and being in combat scenarios doesn't make us milsim, but i think a lot of people are worried that it could lead to something more in that area which is something i feel many people would be against. (general quarters, etc). maybe cael / luca input on this would ease some peoples' worries?

[Omicega]

Now that the cargo Discord has finished brigading the thread and posting the same thing ten times with different wording, maybe we can finally talk about something without some of them throwing a tantrum and then expecting people to take their feedback seriously. This isn't a Hollywood movie; melting down and acting like a child in your post and decrying the server as being 'on its way out by this time next year' or whatever and excusing the hissy fit as a result of passion, general love for the server, or something along those lines is a total joke. Nobody is going to stand up and clap about how brave you are for your scathing, controversial callout. I've been enough of an entitled whiner myself in the past to know that calling yourself 'passionate' about Aurora is just a buzzword for trying to justify screaming your head off at someone instead of being reasonable about it, just like how being 'blunt' about stuff is saying you're better at being rude than you are at being direct. You don't have to agree with what the lore or dev teams are doing (I absolutely hate the 'they do it for free' argument), but as long as they aren't serving you up a totally broken and unworkable end product you at least owe them the courtesy of a modicum of respect.

With that over and done with, my broad thoughts on the arc are that I expected it to be a bit more drawn out -- we went straight from last week's announcement about being 'on the trail of the SFAV Helios' to 'the SCC prepares for an ultimate Battle of Endor confrontation with its biggest foe yet'. I expected there to be a little more build up and a slow burn to this. Did I read it wrong? I thought we'd have at least a couple more 'slower' events where the Horizon has to track down the Helios with more away sites and so forth.

On top of that, I think the overall scale of the event is also too big/bombastic for my liking. I have a marked dislike anyway of events that allow characters to stack their arc with 'I canonically survived 400 near death experiences and boarded this epic amazing giga Solarian cruiser and we won a firefight with the SFA's Elite Guard' or whatever, and while I don't consider myself on the same level of anti-conflict doomerposting as some of the people in this thread, I expected the Horizon's story to be a little less... explosive? I can definitely see how it's hard to justify many characters sticking around at this point.

I think @niennab made the point I can relate to the most, actually, regarding Mendell and stuff. I know it isn't feasible to suggest a rollback to the Aurora map or station setting, but I really really miss the slice of life background fluff offered by Tau Ceti and the commute-to-work angle wherein your characters have lives outside of what you see on screen. The transition from that to a ship was always going to be a bit jarring, but I think it's only been exacerbated by the fact that we're not only jumping into a ship setting, but that we're strapping ship guns on so soon after launch and hurtling headfirst into a ship-to-ship combat heavy arc.

I think the arc has been divisive in more ways than one -- some people really hate it but others really like it, and I think it's pretty irritating to see the echo chamber of only one side stoke up in full force here. @Sneakyranger is about as new to the server as @Sputnik5927 is, but it feels like any take in this thread that isn't entirely in line with the general theme of 'everything about this arc SUCKS' is being ignored at best or taken as a personal attack at worst, so fuck Sneaky for his measured and even positive take on the whole affair I guess?

This whole thing feels more like it's just the catalyst for a big community divide to come to light -- the people at one end of the scale who want their gameplay to be non-violent, low-impact, and generally more like a day-to-day slice-of-life affair; and those who are far more into their high-stakes, high-octane set pieces full of shock moments and whatever else. I feel like I come down somewhere in the middle of this; I like IC conflict, confrontation, and drama to make the roleplay environment interesting and more than a bunch of people linking hands and talking about their day, but I generally prefer it to be on the level of character-to-character confrontation rather than having to dodge IC conversations about a Solarian warship blowing holes in the ship. I think there's a bit of a difference between my loud, proud Solarian engineer having a spat with her Coalition co-workers and the sheer level of conflict we're kind of falling into now.

12 hours ago, SinfulBehaviors said:

I also want to address the actions of some of the Devs and Admins in this thread. A few of you are acting like children. Don't be pissy because people don't like your ideas for events. Going "uhm well ur wrong" to people because they're unhappy is a shitty fucking attitude that does nothing but make you look like a dick and push people who were already on the fence further into not playing. We're all grown adults here, so let's start fucking acting like it.

Could you be any ruder and more confrontational? I promised myself I wouldn't go through the thread and cherrypick quotes out to reply to because I'd be here all day if I did, but more so than anyone else in this thread your posts show how fundamentally out of touch you are. Before anyone pipes up about it, this isn't a 'you don't play' argument -- you just demonstrably have no idea how the development/contribution angle of the server works based on your comments about how you have to 'jump through hoops' to do it (you don't). Faye is right about some people in this thread and I think you're the biggest example of them; maybe you would genuinely be happier without Aurora.

p.s. why is the OP's name in the title of the thread? lol

[SilverSZ]

I was originally not planning to post in this thread, though I have been reading every post. Given I'm not very involved on planning and execution of the current event arc there were better people to speak on it from the team. But given how much I agree with Peppermints post I think it's important to echo it as someone actually on the team. 

I think a good chunk of issues in communication with the team can come from the medium in which we do it. Discord can be fully of people jumping in and out and not everyone will want the same level of seriousness in the discussion. The Forums are better but still are an open forum and I personally don't lean towards the very long posting style it encourages myself.

If you have suggestions, complaints, ideas, questions. Whatever about lore in general like this event arc. Or Synthetic lore which is my area, or even just other areas of lore I pretty much like all of the lore here though obviously I think you should go see lore writers who actually work on that area if you have things about that area. Anyone regardless of any factors is welcome to DM me on Discord (Silvie#0624) and I will do my best to get back to you and have a good discussion about it. I should be open to DM if you're in any of the Aurora servers and if you can't you can send me a friend request. I might not be able to change certain things or affect other things but I can raise issues with the team and make sure your perspective is heard or address your concerns myself. I not only see it as an important part of being a lore team member but personally enjoy interacting with the community and talking about the Lore and hearing both praise and complaints for it. Even if I might disagree, more perspectives can help and that includes those outside of the team directly.

At the end of the day, people would not be here or posting or talking about this if they were not passionate about the Lore of our server. I can assure you that the team and myself take feedback and mistakes done in Arcs and we don't dismiss it. This is the second major event arc of the Horizon and we are still learning, we learnt from Dreary Futures I and will from II in the same manner. I personally want to see as many people as possible enjoy the events and the lore we produce. So regardless of factors people have spoken about like being in a "The Minority" or such things I will treat your feedback the same as anyone else, even if I can't make things perfect there is always compromise to be found and tweaks to be made.

I do just ask that, similar to what Peppermint says. We have these discussions in good faith and politely which of course goes both ways. If I ever treat you talking to me about lore in a rude or unfair way I would hope you make it obvious to me you feel that way so I can improve or obviously, you can bring concerns to Staff Complaints which both Luca and Cael take very seriously. But this is why I prefer DMs for this sort of discussion, it's far easier to be polite and civil without 10, 20 or more voices all talking over each other but just two people who are discussing something they have a passion for. Not to say that open discord channels and the forum don't have their purpose. But sometimes being able to know your concerns are directly heard and addressed is simply something those avenues can't provide and more methods of providing feedback is always good.

To comment on the topic at hand of the thread, as well. I would not consider this Arc a sign of creeping militarization or milrp or such myself. I can say that I do not think many of things people seem to have fears about are something that should ever be on the Horizon. Whilst we will get into combat or even be told to go to it at times, we are not a military ship as much as we are not a non-combatant ship. The addition of weapons makes the Horizon capable of defending itself which was an issue before, but I see no reason there would be any further push towards a more military environment. It would be counter to the lore and setting we try to present, as we are not a military vessel, part of a military and we never will be.

[MattAtlas]

1 hour ago, ErshOurHerzog said:

Nah, there is no need. It wouldn't work, because it is, again, too much time. Admins can't schedule events everyday. So, we just need to code the game to have these off-ship roles suffer. Make them suffer if the scarcity is so bad. Give them only one canister of fuel, make their phoron tanks almost empty, take away their eqipment so these off-ship roles have a sense of scarcity.

For example -- make some tajara smuggler ship always low on fuel so they need to contact the Horizon as soon as possible to trade with them. 

Make the SFA ship struggle with weapons and ammo. Give them only one gun and little food for an entire crew of, like, 5 people? 

The majority of the off-ship roles don't even really need to go out in the space because they have everything on the spot: food, water, equipment, EVERYTHING. So yeah, to solve the dissonance we're having with the current situation in the Spur we must make all the off-ship roles suffer! Why do every one of these smuggling ships have a cafeteria and a small kitchen? They should eat shit! 

This is called 'Ludonarrative Dissonance'. It is a conflict between the narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay. You say one thing in the Lore/Cutscenes, and then you see the entirely different thing in the game. Like, some soldier in COD is saying 'WE'RE LOW ON AMMO" and then you proceed shooting everyone with thousands of magazines for a carbine. That's what we have with offship roles, from MY experience.

Making things miserable doesn't work because people won't play them, unless it's an inherently interesting survival situation that you can get out of (see the crashed pod on Bay). We did it before when away ships were first mapped in - barely any guns and ammo, and it basically only restricted what you could do. It was boring, to say the least.

Most of the away ships we have aren't really actors acting on their own (you could argue the SFA are, but they are in a markedly shitty situation because they get killed on sight by all other offmaps) so they wouldn't be down to 1 gun 1 magazine and some bread tubes either.

It's also a bit of a fallacy for someone to determine the state of the setting solely through offships. There's plenty of relevant storytelling in game - phoron cans not being a thing, the phoron tank being more empty than the others, the Supermatter not using phoron anymore, etc.

[MasterAssistant]

1 hour ago, MattAtlas said:

The issue is that things that happen in game are also missed. Them happening in game only guarantees that the 30-50 or so players would pay attention, but those that don't care (or can't attend) would still miss them. It's possible for us to blast that XYZ happened on the forums and on the wiki... but then that makes it into an article again -- info on a wiki/forum page that you have to read.

In short, there is no reasonable way to guarantee that people will read prerequisite info. It won't be read by some no matter what you do. I guess that guaranteeing that those 30-50 players pay attention is a good step in the right direction still, but I think an article gets the same level of engagement anyway.

I agree that smaller events aren't a silver bullet to all the issues we have, but I think it'd build a better culture towards resolving it. Even if not every single character engages in these events, the ones that do will at least spread some of the effect to the ones that don't. Additionally, with more Command or general player initiative in using in-game systems (like the Newscaster feed, in-game player briefings, or potentially using the noticeboards, although I am unsure if we have the persistent ones here) and the Relay/Forums (the SCC bulletin & the IC forum threads) it'd further compensate for those who missed it while also taking some of the workload off of staff. Sure, this is a bit idealistic but the end-goal here should be furthering player engagement. (and even if what I just stated doesn't pan out as I'd envision it - 30 to 50 players is still a noticeable amount of people for one small-scale event!)

1 hour ago, ErshOurHerzog said:

Nah, there is no need. It wouldn't work, because it is, again, too much time. Admins can't schedule events everyday. So, we just need to code the game to have these off-ship roles suffer. Make them suffer if the scarcity is so bad. Give them only one canister of fuel, make their phoron tanks almost empty, take away their eqipment so these off-ship roles have a sense of scarcity.

For example -- make some tajara smuggler ship always low on fuel so they need to contact the Horizon as soon as possible to trade with them. 

Make the SFA ship struggle with weapons and ammo. Give them only one gun and little food for an entire crew of, like, 5 people? 

The majority of the off-ship roles don't even really need to go out in the space because they have everything on the spot: food, water, equipment, EVERYTHING. So yeah, to solve the dissonance we're having with the current situation in the Spur we must make all the off-ship roles suffer! Why do every one of these smuggling ships have a cafeteria and a small kitchen? They should eat shit! 

This is called 'Ludonarrative Dissonance'. It is a conflict between the narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay. You say one thing in the Lore/Cutscenes, and then you see the entirely different thing in the game. Like, some soldier in COD is saying 'WE'RE LOW ON AMMO" and then you proceed shooting everyone with thousands of magazines for a carbine. That's what we have with offship roles, from MY experience.

I didn't intend to come off as if we should have daily events - this is entirely implausible, of course, I'm just saying we should have smaller ones more often. However, to address the off-ship point: I do actually agree that they should play a bigger part in the scarcity, however this may be hard to reflect without making things too punishing gameplay-wise. While perhaps stripping them of even more gear should be considered, personally I would prefer first and foremost if we added in more non-military themed ships.

Right now there's only really 3-4 away ships that aren't part of the armed forces of some faction, which makes RPing slightly difficult, given that there's not a whole lot of vessels which one could reasonably interact it. Why would the SFA/FSF, in these current conditions, ever interact with the Horizon, or with another armed vessel, besides engaging them? Sure, this view is a bit simplistic and I'm certain there are some examples against it, but it does make things feel more tense. If we had something like habitats, nation-specific civilian/merchant vessels, more corporate vessels etc. I feel it would go well in making affairs go smoother, as well as giving ships that already exist a reason to pick on smaller prey, try to establish zones of control, or simply chill out and trade. Personally, I'm working on an IAC ship, but since there's been a trend on the thread to ask for community involvement I'd also advise others to think of what they like and if not work on it, then at least propose it to someone.

[Sycmos]

1 hour ago, Peppermint said:

That said, this talk of telling people to hold off on their feedback is just as worrying. People giving feedback should be encouraged and this 'wait for the end of the arc' when people are already not having fun is just as silly, and makes it feel like issues are being dismissed. Especially when it feels like there's been attempts to shut conversations down and wait for official channels fairly regularly here and now, though my memory is a bit spotty and I could be entirely misremembering.

Considering my initial commentary went without response and it would be redundant to voice my other concerns as they've been shared by other voices in the thread, I want to touch more on what Peppermint just mentioned - the mention of delaying feedback, the lack of "official" remarks regarding the event, and the general tone it carries.
 

Quote

"In the interest of maintaining a more receptive environment for feedback (for both players and writers), we are going to leave official feedback until the end of the arc."

"You are obviously free to express your opinions here and anywhere else, but do not expect official responses."

"I just want to ask that everyone waits until the event before they have these preconceived ideas about what’s gonna happen. I’ll gladly listen to feedback then, but for now I ask you do not have complaints about an event that has yet to happen, and that none of the greater playerbase is aware of how it may play out."

"Kindness and patience goes a long way for people volunteering to give you entertainment ❤️"

I take issue with these remarks specifically - they come across as dismissive of player feedback to the announcement of the event, which I believe needed to be more concise and elaborate on the context of the event rather than giving a vague blurb which coupled with the recent narrative direction has painted a considerably worse image than what is being discussed here. For events of this magnitude I believe that it's absolutely necessary to have a follow-up explanation on how this impacts the Horizon and its crew, and ultimately why the Horizon is participating. Providing further context will give more purpose to player characters to participate in the event, and hopefully assuage any potential doubts about the direction of the event before it occurs.

The gist of "we're not receiving complaints until the event is over" from these comments when the announcement of said event was alarming on its own is only going to serve to alienate players from participating.

"As of now, the crew of the Horizon and it’s expeditionary force have confirmed, without a doubt, that remnants of the Southern Fleet Administration have gone beyond what was expected of them in terrorizing the Spur and it’s people. Undeniable evidence has revealed the construction of a phoron bomb - an SCC prototype weapon thought to be un-replicable before today. Further evidence collected in the asteroid base reveals an even more worrying sign - movements in the sector suggest a collected SFA strike force, leadership unknown, are gathering to attack the Orchard Moon mining facility. Local SCC ships, including the Icarus, are being called to support what is likely to be a sudden and powerful strike.

As one of the closest and fastest ship in the sector, the Horizon must burn for the system immediately, and join the fight in the name of the Chainlink."

Informing players that they are to participate in the defense of a corporate point of interest against an organized and motivated SFA task force with potentially above-nuclear capabilities canonically at the risk of permanent death, but telling them that you're not receiving complaints until the conflict is already over looks incredibly apathetic to the likely traumatic experience of characters and their players. 

Further event announcements need to have more context to avoid this.

[Lucaken]

1 hour ago, Peppermint said:

That said, this talk of telling people to hold off on their feedback is just as worrying.

19 minutes ago, Sycmos said:

The gist of "we're not receiving complaints until the event is over" from these comments when the announcement of said event was alarming on its own is only going to serve to alienate players from participating.

26 minutes ago, Sycmos said:

but telling them that you're not receiving complaints until the conflict is already over looks incredibly apathetic to the likely traumatic experience of characters and their players.

To be entirely clear, no one has said that feedback is straight up not going to be recieved until the end of the arc. Not only have me, Cael and the rest of the lore team been responding on every front possible, my original post here very specifically said that you are welcome to share your opinions here and anywhere else, but that they would only be officially handled after the arc, as much of the complaints were regarding the possibilities of the last event. It's very difficult to talk about that topic when there are people who are still interested in playing it, and would rather not be spoiled. This includes announcements - when there is an 'emergency event' like this, you can generally rely on us to give updates as we get closer to it - but this involves at least a certain amount of trust and patiance from us. The first announcement was meant to be alarming from IC standpoint. It's sudden, it's unexpected, and it's meant to create in-character drama.

And again, to go back to my post, I already explained that there will be a new way to approach official arc feedback after this arc, including possibly in-between events. This thread, as well as the various arguments in Discord channels, have shown that direct discussion is not helpful for players to easily convey their opinions, or for us writers to sort between feedback and arguments between players. Summaries are another thing we'll take a look at, as it's fair that players wish to be more well informed during arcs, rather than afterwards.

[CampinKiller]

3 hours ago, Faye &lt;3 said:

sidenote: please, please, please for the love of god use the command sub-section to post command briefings for us command mains who miss an event. it felt like i never knew what the fuck was going on this arc and it was a pain to try and incorporate in my character when i missed a round. 

Seconded, I literally have no clue what has happened this arc

[Cnaym]

On 04/12/2022 at 19:08, Sneakyranger said:

To sum, I take very specific issue with the claim that ship v ship events involve less crew than the type of events previously complained about and do not feel that it is a reasonable complaint to make.

I have to sign that chief, as the AI during that round there was so much going on in every department that the captain was best helped by turning off most radio channels. Bombing the bar and kitchen forced even the least involved crew to go do something productive and I loved every moment of it.

I mean even the library as used as emergency CIC, allowing crew that usually does not get any insight into the bridge to witness command handling a full on combat situation through a single window and weigh in with information and opinions. Loved that decision.

As for the too much combat / dangerous group. Nobody dieded. The crew worked together to overcome hardship and everyone made it out alive, I much prefer this to having a random crew shot in an elevator to show how real the danger now is.

[Scheveningen]

Oh, right, and as someone who has been an unfortunate witness to big community divides that Omi was talking about, let me tell you why those actually happen: It's not because of a 'fundamental but mostly irreconcilable difference in server policy.' Those community divides explicitly occur when segment of the community is being treated like shit by the people who run the community. That's why they leave with a bunch of people when things escalate to their boiling point. However, I don't think we're close to that. But it would be smart if we didn't try to test that line, did we? Because the Aurora staff writ large have been pretty good at not making childishly foolish policy decisions post-Cassy, so exploding the community has to be done pretty much on purpose with a lot of pig-headed behavior. So let's not do this. Let's square this issue away at the table and recognize we all need to take responsibility for the things we say, and forgive that, and then circle around to the actual central question which is, "How do we fix the issues people are facing so that we are not at the very least eternally pissed at each other?"

[Roostercat]

Alright, I really should not have to say this, but here goes. 

 

I need to remind you all that this is supposed to be a discussion, not a place to vent your anger and straight up insult other players. I understand that you all have strong feelings about the topic and that you care deeply about the state of the server and where it is going, but you have to keep it civil so that it does not just derail the original thread like it already has. 

 

That being said, if you intend on bashing on other people for their opinions, do not post. I will be applying warnings to anyone that steps over the line from here on out. Disagreeing with someone and refuting their point/defending yours is fine, but insults and accusations are not going to fly. Be adults.

If you don't know if what you are going to post is over the line, DM me and I will tell you.

[Confused rock]

6 hours ago, ErshOurHerzog said:

It is not a joke. I played the off-ship roles for an entire day past week and we didn't have any problems as the Skrell smugglers or the Tajara smugglers. We had a kitchen, a full cargo hold full of everything you want: weapons, equipment, sometimes food, even a hydroponic tray for making drugs.

This seems to me like the biggest mistake. How can you expect a player to believe in the hard times the universe is facing when they have a 'pleasant' time playing an off-ship role that was supposed to be struggling? I mean, yeah, sometimes off-ship dudes docked to the Horizon for resupply and all that, even traded goods for that resupply, but it doesn't happen very often. In fact -- it is rare, because players only wanted to do a gimmick like that. Again, I'm speaking from my own experience.

The Universe is an unforgiving place. Don't make it a walk in the park. especially in badlands

The problem is if there's a shortage of something, there's no real way to resolve it. You'd either have to get *very* lucky with away sites, or trade with the horizon (which fits for some away ships but not for others) or rob it (which fits for the other ones but we don't want that)

[MattAtlas]

7 hours ago, MasterAssistant said:

I agree that smaller events aren't a silver bullet to all the issues we have, but I think it'd build a better culture towards resolving it. Even if not every single character engages in these events, the ones that do will at least spread some of the effect to the ones that don't. Additionally, with more Command or general player initiative in using in-game systems (like the Newscaster feed, in-game player briefings, or potentially using the noticeboards, although I am unsure if we have the persistent ones here) and the Relay/Forums (the SCC bulletin & the IC forum threads) it'd further compensate for those who missed it while also taking some of the workload off of staff. Sure, this is a bit idealistic but the end-goal here should be furthering player engagement. (and even if what I just stated doesn't pan out as I'd envision it - 30 to 50 players is still a noticeable amount of people for one small-scale event!)

I agree fully here even if I think that the tank for minievents would dry quickly. Nonetheless it's worth trying for the next arc.

Although for the next arc in general we should wean off of big ship vs ship stuff. Like Cael said on Discord that's already going to be the case though.

[FlamingLily]

I just lost a reply and can't be assed to rewrite it fully so here's a brief summary:

 

More availability for players who can't play the events to learn what happens and to incorporate that into their character

More in-game reflection of the greater state of the Spur

More out-of-game reflection of in-game events (See: Nanotrasen pulling out of Elyra after Border Dispute, and hopefully what Cael mentioned above:)

20 hours ago, Caelphon said:

5. This is going to be pursued

[Sycmos]

On 05/12/2022 at 13:28, Lucaken said:

To be entirely clear, no one has said that feedback is straight up not going to be recieved until the end of the arc. Not only have me, Cael and the rest of the lore team been responding on every front possible, my original post here very specifically said that you are welcome to share your opinions here and anywhere else, but that they would only be officially handled after the arc, as much of the complaints were regarding the possibilities of the last event. It's very difficult to talk about that topic when there are people who are still interested in playing it, and would rather not be spoiled. This includes announcements - when there is an 'emergency event' like this, you can generally rely on us to give updates as we get closer to it - but this involves at least a certain amount of trust and patiance from us. The first announcement was meant to be alarming from IC standpoint. It's sudden, it's unexpected, and it's meant to create in-character drama.

And again, to go back to my post, I already explained that there will be a new way to approach official arc feedback after this arc, including possibly in-between events. This thread, as well as the various arguments in Discord channels, have shown that direct discussion is not helpful for players to easily convey their opinions, or for us writers to sort between feedback and arguments between players. Summaries are another thing we'll take a look at, as it's fair that players wish to be more well informed during arcs, rather than afterwards.

The announcements being alarming is fine, and the provocation of IC drama is also fine - but considering the direction and the purpose of the Horizon have not been made clear to either characters or players since its departure events like this need to have more in the way of context for the Horizon's involvement to avoid blowouts like this. There's a distinctly worrying grey area where the Horizon is currently sitting that is detrimental to the backgrounds of a myriad of characters that live and work on it, and it needs to be either clarified or minimized so that we can avoid this in the future. I am not sure of how this can be done given that I have no idea how the lore team plans their arcs, but it's quite clear that a number of players were led to believe that the Horizon would be a civilian exploration vessel with armaments for self defense and would not be actively pursuing danger of this magnitude. I think something needs to be done to make players more aware of their characters' actual responsibility, because as it stands trying to justify using the Horizon as a naval asset while being staffed with civilian crew who have received last minute training with armaments installed last minute feels very flimsy - at the moment. That could change, and I hope it does.

Secondly, and this is more of a symptom of the current area the Horizon is in - I feel that the constantly nagging Solarian presence is only making this issue more aggravated considering we just came off of a major arc that included Solarians that segued into the NBT, and we're continuing to deal with the belligerent macropolitics that plague the faction. I understand that they are a major player in the setting but characters have been dealing with griefing from the FSF and the SFA for several months with little else on display to offset their presence is likely tedious for players at this point. I think that once we finally move away from this things will settle down, and flare-ups like this will hopefully be less whatever this is.

Lastly... there's commentary in this thread I'm noticing that are coming dangerously close to dismissive with buzzwords like "vocal minority", challenging players for not contributing mapping/coding, and accusations of clique association. While I don't agree with the verbiage being used by some players who have decided to voice their disappointment with the current narrative (and I implore them to re-examine how they approach the issue) I don't think it's fair or acceptable to hang these things over other players, especially by those who are not lore staff but have actively contributed to this arc by either mapping, coding or playing event characters. Whether we like it or not this server is on display 24 hours a day to whoever wants to come in and play, whether or not they support the current arc or they find it distasteful. If you choose to support it with your technical skills or time, that's great and I'm glad that you're dedicating your time to making the server better - but just like you and staff the players are volunteering their time and their energy to make your efforts a living, breathing experience. The value of their enjoyment or lack thereof is not dictated by whether or not they contributed. I think that poses an unhealthy dichotomy that doesn't and shouldn't exist.

Ultimately I feel that the Horizon will be a better vehicle (literally) for better exploration of our server's setting and with time find a more unique niche which will set Aurora further apart as the definitive HRP server, but there's a lot of work to be done between staff and the players - not just one or the other - to get there.

[Happy_Fox]

10 hours ago, Sycmos said:

Lastly... there's commentary in this thread I'm noticing that are coming dangerously close to dismissive with buzzwords like "vocal minority", challenging players for not contributing mapping/coding, and accusations of clique association. While I don't agree with the verbiage being used by some players who have decided to voice their disappointment with the current narrative (and I implore them to re-examine how they approach the issue) I don't think it's fair or acceptable to hang these things over other players, especially by those who are not lore staff but have actively contributed to this arc by either mapping, coding or playing event characters. Whether we like it or not this server is on display 24 hours a day to whoever wants to come in and play, whether or not they support the current arc or they find it distasteful. If you choose to support it with your technical skills or time, that's great and I'm glad that you're dedicating your time to making the server better - but just like you and staff the players are volunteering their time and their energy to make your efforts a living, breathing experience. The value of their enjoyment or lack thereof is not dictated by whether or not they contributed. I think that poses an unhealthy dichotomy that doesn't and shouldn't exist.

They keep appearing whenever big community discussions appear and honestly they're toxic and undermining any legitimate discussions that take place. 

[La Villa Strangiato]

Permit me some digression (and some tired old comparisons between servers) before I get to my point.

I did my time on Bay for a year or so (roughly 2020-2021), and one thing that surprised me here was how people talk about Bay as if it was very hardcore milRP. In my playing experience, which obviously didn't include marines, you were permitted to pick your milRP level along with your branch. Contractor meant you could forgo it more or less entirely, Expeditionary Corps meant you could have some light regulations with a side of Starfleet, and Fleet meant you could go all-in with uniform regs, paying attention to the senior enlisted advisor, having weapons training, etc. But even with that, milRP wasn't hugely affecting of the ship's atmosphere. At the end of the day, it was still an exploration ship and tended to be flavoured as such (even if very little canon exploration events happened while I played).

Thus, perhaps you can imagine my surprise on coming to Aurora and expecting a "corporate hellscape" setting, then being almost immediately greeted with the Horizon being outfitted with city-levelling weaponry. But given that it had already been established that the Badlands were very dangerous, I thought it was quite reasonable that the Horizon should have some weaponry to defend itself. Space is dangerous!

And then this event was announced, and I was confused and disappointed. Allow me to second the thoughts of other players:

On 04/12/2022 at 20:56, FlamingLily said:

1. The Horizon is absolutely not the closest ship to Valley Hale, nor does its speed justify dragging it all the way from the Badlands. If you expect me to believe the Horizon could get there in time, let alone before TCFL or PMC ships from the CRZ (Who are right there, mind you), and be the only ship capable of doing so, then you expect too much from me.

On 07/12/2022 at 04:54, Sycmos said:

There's a distinctly worrying grey area where the Horizon is currently sitting that is detrimental to the backgrounds of a myriad of characters that live and work on it, and it needs to be either clarified or minimized so that we can avoid this in the future. I am not sure of how this can be done given that I have no idea how the lore team plans their arcs, but it's quite clear that a number of players were led to believe that the Horizon would be a civilian exploration vessel with armaments for self defense and would not be actively pursuing danger of this magnitude.

On 04/12/2022 at 07:00, Sputnik5927 said:

I can no longer suspend my disbelief when the SCC sends its most precious project, meant to search for Phoron, to a naval battle like this. Even if it was about protecting the Orchard Moon at all costs, Zavodskoi and other corporations have Security fleets that can be relocated in time. If not, what about allied military forces? I can find no logical reason for the SCC to send the Horizon, full of diplomats, high-ranking scientists, politicians, consulars and most importantly Phoron right into the arms of the SFA so that they can force a decisive battle against the SCC's most precious assets.

Essentially, I can't suspend my disbelief either. I poked my nose in some of the IC discourse surrounding the event, and immediately realised it made no sense for pretty much all of my characters to bother staying on the Horizon. As a matter of fact, I think the only characters who would stay on the Horizon are my medical intern and first responder, the former because she wants to minimize casualties, the other because she's an IPC who is a corporate slave.

To tie in my first paragraph, this is a lot more military to me than Bay ever was. Also, why Sol badguy? I get the fascist space empire is a pretty easy target for aantag, but we're in the Badlands. If we wanted to do more ship combat, wouldn't it be cool to duel Unathi or Tajaran space pirates as a destructive canon event?

As an addendum, I cannot help but lol and lmao at the expressions of "Well You Don't Get An Opinion If You Don't Make Content And If You Want An Opinion You Should Make Content". The exact same sentiment was regularly expressed on Bay by staff, no matter how polite and well-composed a player's argument was, and I can say with confidence that that sentiment was what led to a lot of players (myself and my friends included) leaving.

As a second addendum, I also appreciate Cael's willingness to try and explain the reasonings behind the event, even if I don't particularly agree with them. Hopefully once this event is over, we can focus less on Sol and a "pseudo-milRP" experience.