Could we remove cloning?

[K0NFL1QT]

Cloning is never as guaranteed as people in this thread have been making out, yet characters still YOLO into squads of new cops because either the character is reckless or the player is overconfident. But to clarify, I meant largely on behalf of the surviving characters.

Because think about it. A clone is NOT the same person.

Example; Jon & Jane.

Jon and Jane are friends that work at Aurora.

Jon is killed.

Jon is cloned.

The Jon that Jane knew is still dead, but now there's an identical copy of Jon with his memories, mannerisms, etc.

IC: Jane can, and should, still be deeply affected by the fact that the Jon they know is dead, regardless of cloning. That they don't is not because cloning exists. They either convince themselves that Jon is the same, or they shut the hell up because you don't tell clones they are clones. Would Jane prefer Jon be cloned to be roughly the same as his old self, remade into a borg without free-will and emotional capacity, or stay dead and gone, just a memory forever? What you call the 'awkward roleplay' of avoiding the cloning topic, or accepting that your friend is now a clone, is what I call 'good roleplay'; consequences affecting characters without inconveniencing the players too much.

OOC: Player A, Jons player, likes playing Jon. Despite dying, Player A will probably want to play Jon again in another round. However, for this round, Player A has the option of having to now play Jon as having died and woken up as a mindslaved borg, or not at all.

Long story short; if you want death to be more meaningful, find someone to play 'more meaningful death scenarios' with you, or try playing Chaplain and holding ceremonies for the unrecoverable and consoling their close friends.

Another note; there's already a tenuous 'semi-canon' link from round to round, where you can remember meeting people and having good times together, but you can't remember any antag activity or any 'negative consequence'. Making death more permanent would make that even more tenuous because Jon has died horribly every round for the last ten rounds, and every round Jane has to go into a spiral of drama and despair over her friends death. At least with cloning there can be an unspoken secret that can explain why perpetually dead characters return, shift after shift.

[Eliot Clef]

I am categorically opposed to both the removal of cloning and the removal of genetics, more-or-less for the same reasons cited by Susan. I think the entire notion is completely and totally devoid of merit.

Death is cheap in this game. At least once or twice a month the holodeck goes crazy and floods the main corridors of the station with pressure so intense that people die in droves for not being someplace isolated.

* Xenobiologists attempting to do their job die to tiny mistakes that I've seen even the most seasoned xenobiologists make on a regular basis -- and learning that job involves a lot of mistakes.

* Drones and carp spawn on people EVA who had no reason to know they'd be there.

* Unusually huge meteors blow out portions of the station.

* Virology creates a station-killing air-born murder virus. One person opens the wrong airlock and spreads the death to others. A portion of the station gets vented abruptly and a whole lot of lungs pop. Etc.

If the quality of "Death is Final" RP was sufficiently satisfactory from the perspective of those who have died in any given round, they can choose to have DNCs in their character's records or simply refuse to come back. This should not be forced on people to resolve the myriad problems that come from the fact that this is a video game that doesn't simulate fear very well.

[Frances]

-snip-

Rather than reply to all of these examples individually, I'd like to ask you what your personal experiences with dying have been like. Have you gotten cloned a lot due to events like these, or are they only things you have witnessed upon others?

(I'll also add that any scenario resulting in large-scale dying - bombs, bloodthirsty syndies, russians, viruses that kill everyone - will rarely result in cloning.)

[Rusty Shackleford]

NOOOOOO

NONONONONONO

THIS IS THE WORST IDEA EVER

EVEN WORSE THAN THE NEW MAP

SERIOUSLY STAHP

THE "REMOVE CLONING" THREADS ARE BECOMING LIKE THE "I'M LEAVING" THREADS

STAHP

[Rusty Shackleford]

Why are people even considering this?! And just as I'm in the middle of writing lore for this shit too!

[Eliot Clef]

-snip-

Rather than reply to all of these examples individually, I'd like to ask you what your personal experiences with dying have been like. Have you gotten cloned a lot due to events like these, or are they only things you have witnessed upon others?

(I'll also add that any scenario resulting in large-scale dying - bombs, bloodthirsty syndies, russians, viruses that kill everyone - will rarely result in cloning.)

 

This is stuff I've more-or-less entirely witnessed happening to others. The most common deaths I've experienced involve popped lungs from unknowingly entering vented areas without internals active (I eventually learned to just never turn internals off if any vented areas were known to be in the station, at all), or getting surprised by somebody prepared to murder me.

I play borgs lately almost exclusively, and my current main will (hopefully) eventually become an IPC, so cloning is mostly irrelevant to my personal play experience.

I'll admit that I enjoy Genetics testing a lot, but that's not really my primary concern here. The presence of cloning informs a lot of the rest of the gameplay, even if it largely doesn't apply to me. I can't really imagine a counter-point anybody could produce (including what has already been presented in this thread) which would change my mind.

[swat43]

Okay.. Let's look from another perspective. We are working on one of the high research stations that experiments with plasma.

You will by now know what i am pointing at, and if you don't, let me point it out then.

Anything can happen in the station. A lot of incidents that may be gruesome, failed experiments or just anything else that may injure someone lethaly. All(or most) have written a agreement that they will get cloned if any harm which lead to death, they will have a chance to 'live' again. Lately since i last played, i once saw a lot of incidents happening on extended where people died on xenobiology or something else happened on toxins mixing. They got revived.. I am sorry, 'Cloned' and were given a small mental eval and then sent back to their job. Now here's the interesting part. What this means is, death teaches us what we've done wrong and we give them ANOTHER chance to correct it or make sure they do not do it again.

I am not saying that we should remove cloning, but mostly against it. Hell yea, it can give more Fear RP, but for such people like me, that mostly plays with ONE character i despise it. There are numerous reasons for cloning to exist and for the geneticist to, and removing cloning.. in my honest opinion would cut a leg off from the gameplay.

And by removing cloning, id say, we would cut the roleplay more than we would actually gain any, but that is from my perspective.

Why remove one thing if we can improve it? There is a reason for a psychologist/psychiatrist to exist in the game, why not fullfill this role even more? The DNC is still not fully fleshed out in my opinion and still lacks something to be completely 100%

[Frances]

Why are people even considering this?! And just as I'm in the middle of writing lore for this shit too!

I believe the general consensus among people who spoke against cloning is that it could remain in the lore, but simply off-station, and would generally be an uncommon or unpopular practice.

 

The most common deaths I've experienced involve popped lungs from unknowingly entering vented areas without internals active

I can't speak for the rest, but the deadliness of collapsed lungs is currently a bug. I've seen it used as an argument in various suggestions/changes, and we should keep in mind they will be far less lethal as soon as that particular issue gets sorted out.

As for the rest, wouldn't it be better to let people who actually make frequent use of cloning to speak for themselves, rather than try to speak on their behalf?

 

-snip-

Wouldn't every death being more impactful be a more welcome addition to the RP environment of the server than the occasional cloning freakout? As for the part about people learning from their mistakes, it's not like these people aren't able to play again the next round (and if you made a mistake big enough to cause your death, wellllll.) What really needs to be considered is simply the fact that they'd have to wait out until the next round to play their character again, plain and simple.

[Eliot Clef]

As for the rest, wouldn't it be better to let people who actually make frequent use of cloning to speak for themselves, rather than try to speak on their behalf?

 

My relative aptitude for survival does not make my categorically negative opinion on this subject weak or invalid. If people who die more regularly want to express dissent, they are welcome to do so themselves, although I half-suspect that many of the people who die regularly are not the sort to be forum-goers. I came here to express my opinion because of the apparent massive popularity of something that would, in my eyes, diminish the game extremely sharply.

None of the "benefits" of removing cloning strike me as benefits of any substantial worth. They strike me as cheap grittiness framed as "Good RP", and in all honesty if it was me I'd restore Genetics to its heyday of being able to clone an infinite number of people in a given round.

I think that the story should, where possible, be molded to fit the gameplay, not the other way around. I realize this is a Heavy RP server and that is very often not going to be how it works here, and that's OK, I'll deal with it. But I'm still going to come and throw my two cents into the hat when it comes up, especially on such a potentially important subject matter.

[Hackie]

Alright you stupid carebears, it's time for the god of robustness to speak.

Look, you all may boast about the RP opportunities offered by cloning but, when does it ever happen? It's awkward, inconvenient and just too common. In the heat of the moment, when medbay's full, no-one ever takes the time to roleplay going through some mad surgery, or being cloned. You're stitched and sent out to be culled endlessly by the antagonists. By removing cloning you directly interfere with the innate balance this game has settled on. Space station 13 is designed to have players treat death lightly. This does not work with Heavy Roleplay. It quite frankly just comes down to whether you want to change the balance of the game, people will always treat death lightly. Most players treat someone covered in blood, or gibs on the floor like it's normal. Who cares in the end, we will adapt and eventually get used to it. It will just make the game of shooting a little bit more fun, so I want it.

[Guest]

I like that cloning and genetics exist, both thematically and mechanically, so I'm absolutely against removing either. I could write a lengthy post explaining why, but I'll just summarize; no, it's a bad idea.

Your character is a clone of a clone of a clone. Accept it.

 

....Heeeeeeh.

Since we're all just hanging on my own opinion on the subject. Like, totally, you know.

Personally? Don't care. Don't care if the devs decide "ya sure remove cloning" or "no we're not doing that." However.

People like konfliqt and Sue bring up some good critical points here. You may wish to attempt to address them whenever.

If we're going to remove an easy second life, then we're likely going to have to start making death a lot less brutal as well.

 

Edit: Did hackie seriously just call himself 'the god of robustness' in a cloning thread?

[Frances]

Most players treat someone covered in blood, or gibs on the floor like it's normal.

This is actually a good point to some extent.

People care a lot more when incidents happen to people they personally know. People generally do not when it happens to random strangers, as there are far too many dying strangers in this game for us to pretend to care about all of them.

Do people already care about others dying when they want to? Yes. Would people have more opportunities, or chances to care about death if cloning was removed, yes. Would they seize these opportunities? That remains to be determined.

I've added this concern to my list as it is something I had completely overlooked.

[Guest]

Most players treat someone covered in blood, or gibs on the floor like it's normal.

This is actually a good point to some extent.

People care a lot more when incidents happen to people they personally know. People generally do not when it happens to random strangers, as there are far too many dying strangers in this game for us to pretend to care about all of them.

Do people already care about others dying when they want to? Yes. Would people have more opportunities, or chances to care about death if cloning was removed, yes. Would they seize these opportunities? That remains to be determined.

I've added this concern to my list as it is something I had completely overlooked.

 

This is an issue you cannot force a fix for. You cannot make people care, even ICly.

[jackfractal]

It looks like opinions on this are pretty evenly split.

My suggestion would be to run a test.

My proposed test would be:

1. Put in a code change that logs every time someone gets cloned (this isn't logged why?).

2. Run the server for a week.

3. Check the total number of people cloned during that week, compare it to the total number of organic deaths.

4. What percentage of people who die are cloned?

5. Comment out cloning. Remove it from the map. Put up a sign where it used to be: 'Resurrection temporarily out of service'.

6. Run the server for a week without cloning.

7. Revert the cloning removal. This is important. We don't want to just change the status quo. This is a test, not a stealth modification.

8. Create a new thread. Discuss the pros and cons of having or not having cloning, now with actual data.

9. Implement ongoing changes, whatever they may be.

10. Party hats for everyone.

[Eliot Clef]

This is an issue you cannot force a fix for. You cannot make people care, even ICly.

 

Preeeeetty much. Our map currently spawns with a mini party room filled with a bloody broken bottle, blood streaks on the floor, etc. Incredible violence that should disturb a normal individual deeply is an implicit part of station life.

 

It looks like opinions on this are pretty evenly split.

My suggestion would be to run a test.

My proposed test would be:

1. Put in a code change that logs every time someone gets cloned (this isn't logged why?).

2. Run the server for a week.

3. Check the total number of people cloned during that week, compare it to the total number of organic deaths.

4. What percentage of people who die are cloned?

5. Comment out cloning. Remove it from the map. Put up a sign where it used to be: 'Resurrection temporarily out of service'.

6. Run the server for a week without cloning.

7. Revert the cloning removal. This is important. We don't want to just change the status quo. This is a test, not a stealth modification.

-snip-

 

I would be tentatively OK with a wait-and-see approach, but I have to admit deep apprehension. Most large-scale changes we implement (map change, bluesec) do not seem like they're really all that open to reversion. (Not that I want those things reverted.)

[jackfractal]

I understand your reluctance though these wouldn't be that big. You're talking about three items to be commented out (clonepod, clonepod circuit, clonepod circuit design) and two items left over to be removed from the map (the extraneous computer and scanner).

It's pretty light, as far as removals go. Putting it back is just as easy, you just need to replace the clonepod circuit in tech storage, and the cloning setup in genetics which is all of three items.

[Erik Tiber]

You are wrong. It would not still make death cheap. It has a chance of not working based on brain damage. Death is less cheap by including a lower chance of success. You would not be able to go straight back into roleplay like nothing happened. It would have a large impact on roleplay, on behavior, on how your character acts. Hell, having their brain cut into and modified, and actually just flat-out acknowledging this, with permanent functional changes, is a major thing. That's not making death cheap at all.

ICly, cloning has a chance of failure (from ghosts not coming back to their bodies or refusing to be cloned). Yet that already seems to have little impact on how people perceive death - due to this reason, I find it hard to believe making the cloning process harder would achieve much besides annoying people who want to be cloned.

It would not just be making it harder, it would give it a larger chance of failure.

Your option will annoy everyone who wants to be cloned, therefore that is not a valid criticism. You are going to piss off everyone who dies and wants to be revived. This would do that less. This would also make more sense ICly and would be a gigantic improvement in that respect.

Currently, cloning, ICly, has no logical chance of failure due to backups and previous backups. You will NOT have the database fail enough to wipe out all of someone's backups. That's simply not gonna happen and it's utterly contrived. As of now death makes very little sense as long as nondestructive uploads remain. Someone has some godmodded RP where they die of a stroke? You should be able to just revive them or fix them up. If you godmod them to die, you can logically clone them from backlogs. And if one backlog is corrupt, you clone from one of the other, non-corrupted backups. It's not like their backups will all happen to be uniquely corrupted, or that they wouldn't test them out or check them for corruption. It's arbitrary in the extreme if they end up dying.

By actually having you switch brains, you remove nondestructive uploading and it's still the same person. It's a separate change but it's still a good one. It means that cloning is treated similar to... say, a medical procedure, similar to the life-saving process. I would like it if you had more measures in place before cloning so that cloning's use would be cut down considerably.

Is getting borged 'making death cheap'?

Not really, because people never get borged on death. It's not something people think of, borgings only tend to happen on valid participants or antags (never seen an antag being borged on Aurora though), and being turned into a borg changes the personality of the character entirely in most cases, thus making it difficult to compare to cloning.

It doesn't have to. Give them a prosthetic body without intentionally lobotomizing them and you'll have a vaguely similar result to cloning.

If you remove cloning, medical will just borg everyone or store their brains in cryo or something. Or at least they should, rather than leaving them to die, because even with significant personality changes that's better than death altogether.

[witchbells]

I'm against just about every aspect of this.

- Removing players/characters for an entire round is something that has already been discussed at length, and generally decided as not cool at all. If a player wants death roleplay, all they need to do is not return to their body when cloned. In addition, it is ridiculously easy to kill someone in SS13.

- Removing cloning from genetics would leave make it so the geneticist's only purpose would be to discover disabilities, mods, and powers, which I personally am avidly against. Cloning is actually a large majority of a geneticist's job, especially since self-testing is largely frowned upon on our server.

- Clone roleplay is a large part of medical procedure. A significant part of cloning protocol relies heavily on the doctors, checking for DNC, disibilities (which would make a UI+SE necessary), cryogenic treatment and medication. There's also, of course, Clone Memory Disorder, which means the clone cannotknow that they were cloned. While each crew member reacts differently to the information, it's impactful on each of them, and leads to serious consequences for the worst. Compliance with this procedure is more frantic when cloning of a doctor or head of staff is in question, as some heads of staff require re-implantation.

- There are much cooler things to do to genetics.

[Jakers457]

Ironically cloning has played a large part in one my character's development. I mean, mainly because it's caused her to grow her out again due to the side effects. Which is amusing to say the least.

My compromise would be that recovery process from being speed grown in a vat should be longe. Perhaps paralysis in the legs for a set amount of time and other things in that nature.

[Minijar]

While I am against this, perhaps do a few days testing on the server to show people how awful it is without cloning then add it back in after say a week.

[Guest]

While I am against this, perhaps do a few days testing on the server to show people how awful it is without cloning then add it back in after say a week.

 

This would be the best option, unless a concensus is reached.

However, even though I like RP oportunities that stem from death and hate concept of cloning, which is a doorway to immortality, I think cloning is too far entranched inside gameplay to outright remove. Seems a bit too drastic. Again, this is why a short test would be in order to see how it works, before we waste time discussing it further.

[VoltageHero]

I've skimmed through the pages, but I don't know if this has actually been stated.

No, you're not going to get more RP from removing genetics.

What is going to happen instead, even if you want to say it won't, is this. Person A will be killed, or be dying. Doctor B will run in and attempt to save them. Upon failing, Doctor B will alert medical to the person's death, and stuff them in the morgue where they'll be forgotten for the rest of the round.

You're only going to get more RP with your clique of other players. You're not going to give a new, average Joe more RP in the least, because OOCly and ICly, who is going to care about their death?

You may state "well, it'll affect them over a long period of time, knowing that they can't be cloned". No. No it won't. People may RP being cautious for a few days, but it'll get boring, and we'll have the same reaction and attitudes to situations that we do today.

Also, this.

If a player wants death roleplay, all they need to do is not return to their body when cloned.

 

Furthermore on the subject of this,

 

f you remove cloning, medical will just borg everyone or store their brains in cryo or something. Or at least they should, rather than leaving them to die, because even with significant personality changes that's better than death altogether.

 

Says who? You don't know a character's morals. Maybe they would rather die a thousand times over, than be a borg. Maybe they wouldn't. You can't say "that's better than death" for every case of a dead or dying character.

[Guest]

I was HoP once, and was dying from a popped lung, Medical didnt prioritize me, and when they finally got to me, they couldny treat me, so they just said "We'll let you die and then clone you, dont worry"

[Jamini]

NOOOOOO

NONONONONONO

THIS IS THE WORST IDEA EVER

EVEN WORSE THAN THE NEW MAP

SERIOUSLY STAHP

THE "REMOVE CLONING" THREADS ARE BECOMING LIKE THE "I'M LEAVING" THREADS

STAHP

 

This.

Cloning is integral to the game and many mechanics. Removing it is the absolute worst thing you can consider doing. I'm not kidding. This is the worst idea you could possible consider suggesting in the history of bad ideas.

Removing it is an absolutely fucking terrible idea.

OH YES ALSO BORGING IS ALSO LITERALLY HITER IN OUR LORE. IT IS A COMPLETE DEATH OF PERSONALITY AS IT STANDS CURRENTLY.

If this happens even in a provisional or test sense I will be gone so fast the rest of you will get knocked over from ZAS from my exit.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Guest

[mrimatool]

I've suggested this so many times and I'm absolutely for it for the reasons you stated Frances. Although I am afraid this will mean trying to RP and emote as a doctor will be less likely as you'll get punished for letting someone die if you RP your heart out.