Project Anabasis Development Diary #0 - The Future of Aurora

[MattAtlas]

Project Anabasis Development Diary #0
The Future of Aurora

Hello everyone. It’s been a long time since the community survey that we made to collect player interest on various changes that we could make to the game. It has been even more time since the plans for the future of the server were formed, and we have now begun active development on both the lore and gameplay development sides. As we develop for the NBT, we will try our best to put out regular development diaries that outline what we’re doing, both as a way to keep players updated and engaged in the development process (for both lore and game), and also to collect feedback on the features and changes we make.

Before we get into the details of the future of the server, however, I want to talk about present Aurora. More specifically, where we have failed, where the problems with our server lie, and how they can be fixed. This is because much of what we’re doing with NBT2 needs prior context to properly understand why we’re doing things a certain way. With that out of the way, let’s start with a problem that’s very familiar to us all.

Lack of Gameplay

Ever since our shift from the mixed MRP/HRP type of roleplay to strictly HRP with the removal of mixed secret somewhere around 2018, Aurora steadily had its gameplay eroded through many years. 

With the focus now on roleplay and character interactions, players lost sight of the game aspect of Aurora; the actual server became more akin to a sandbox with less of a game involved, where convenience outweighs the need for a game. A good example of this is the progressive erosion of inter-departmental gameplay and connections, how the hydroponicist until not too long ago was a job totally subsumed by the chef, because by that point it became a common perception that you should be able to do your job to its fullest extent no matter what. This is problematic because inter-department gameplay not only serves to drive interaction between character that otherwise wouldn’t interact with eachother, it’s also the fundamental basis of a cooperative game. Too much convenience leads to people having no reason to actually engage with the game, and thus they will take the path of least resistance – a path that involves them staying in their bubble.

Other departments such as Science saw their gameplay loop become outdated with changes to the server rules or environment, so they fell into irrelevance and disrepair. With the removal of mixed secret and the shift towards permanent character development as the primary focus of Aurora, Science lost most of its raison-d’etre. It was fairly successful as the antagonist shenanigans department; players from 2017 like myself will remember Science mass printing lawgivers, energy glaives, energy shields, advanced energy guns… all of which were removed because of powergaming concerns, or simply because they no longer fit the more serious roleplay aspect of Aurora, leading to a deserted and ultimately pointless department. These problems were also compounded by unnecessarily draconian rules regarding the usage of much of Science equipment.

All of this has led to a state where the game exists in a very tenuous way. As there is functionally no game to play, the only reason to join is to roleplay with your friends – but this is a case of whether the egg can be born before the chicken. How can we expect population to grow, or for people to join the game when there is no reason to unless there are already players online? In essence, Aurora works when the gamemode is Mercenary and when there is a minimum of population. If the population ever goes below that minimum amount, the game breaks completely, and people will no longer join. This is the biggest root cause of the spells of no population that we go through sometimes. If the planets align in a way where the population suddenly dies (exams is a typical one), then we will stop reaching that “critical mass” amount of players, and thus the server’s population will crash.

The conclusion here is that Aurora must go back to being a game. This does not mean that roleplay should be deprioritized, neglected, or what have you, far from it – what I mean is that people should be joining the server to play a game, which will in turn provide them with roleplay. There should be a reason to join the round beyond your friends being online. Similarly, there should be a selling point to people. There should be enough action, enough palpable gameplay to get them to try the server and stick around – and this must be unique gameplay that they can’t get anywhere else.

Insufficient Canonicity

One of our biggest pride points about Aurora is our canonicity system, where everything is canon… or is supposed to, at least, unless it is an antagonist, an away site, an interaction with an offship, retconned… In essence, it’s fake canonicity. We want to pride ourselves on canonicity when nothing interesting (with an asterisk on interesting depending on personal interests, I mean it in the sense of Aurora’s gameplay) can actually be canon in the first place. This is a problem because one of our main pride point is essentially kneecapped by the rules, but there is a reason why this is the way it is.

That reason is that canonicity must sustain the setting. A setting that’s meant to be corporate, smooth, and mostly similar to a 9-to-5 setting cannot have these things be canon. A corporate flagship setting has to apply a certain amount of restrictions to the characters played on it because otherwise it would be a plot hole. We already run into this fairly often with pirate characters. Realistically they would not be hired at all, but we all suspend our disbelief because they’re fun to have around. The point to understand here, however, is that a corporate flagship meant to be in a 9-to-5ish setting cannot have its crew dealing with dangerous pirates, massive greimorian infestations, crew deaths day in and day out. At that point you would not be a phoron research vessel anymore, it would be arguably breaking the lore, it would just not make sense to be doing those things when most of your crew is supposed to be scientists or otherwise civilians.

A Stale Setting

The setting itself contributes to this as well – the truth is that the corporate setting has become uninteresting. It is old, done to death, and no longer capable of attracting the standard SS13 playerbase that has now matured or moved onto newer pastures. We need to innovate, both because we are getting outcompeted by fresher settings, and also because our current setting is a ball and chain around our leg. It doesn’t let us do very interesting things, it constraints our development as everything needs to fit a static, mostly unchanging universe. It is hard to have interesting events happen not only because of the expectations placed upon us by the setting (the Horizon is expected to remain mostly safe as a non-combat science ship) but also because the universe as it is is lackluster in powderkegs and tension (the last major change was KOTW years ago, which arguably ended up stabilizing the universe even more).

In short, the setting is too restrictive on what we can do. Aurora has a problem that its rounds are simply not interesting enough, and we can’t iterate on that without evolving or changing the setting so that we have more development freedom on what we can take the ship and its characters through. We also want players to have more room to play antagonistic or otherwise chaotic characters without running into as many IC or OOC problems, and for their actions to be canon more often than not, and we also want the universe to be fresher and give more opportunities for interesting things to happen, for different characters to be made and for players to regain that spark of inspiration that they once had.

The Pillars of the New Setting

With that said, what we aim to deliver is a less restrictive setting where characters are allowed to engage in more interesting activities, along with the relaxation of some rules to better allow for conflict to happen and flow in a round. As such, I have outlined some pillars of the new setting that will be respected for every step of the development process, and well into the future of the new setting.

• Unification of the setting. There must be a central thread that ties everyone together to some degree. Disconnection from the setting is not ideal as it leads to characters that are too “individual” and uninvested in the narrative.
• Removal of the reliance on lore events, and full integration of the players into the IC future of the game. The game must stand on its own two feet, without relying on lore events to give a breath of fresh air. They should still happen, but they should not be the main expectation of gameplay. Players should be free to shape the in-world narrative to a certain degree. More of this will be shared in a future development diary.
• As much conflict as possible must be canon. Whatever happens, it must be believable for the ship to have gone through it, and it should remain canon in accordance to the players’ wishes.
• Everyone must be involved in the gameplay loop. No one element – department, job, away ship – of the game should be completely uninvolved from the main gameplay loop.
• There must be a main gamemode that drives the characters’ motivations and actions. By giving the ship a real, concrete purpose, we can finally simulate the feeling that everyone is working through the same objective, adn create that feeling of camaraderie that was always lacking from the Horizon.
• As much gameplay as possible must be persistent. The next level in our evolution as a roleplay server is to strive for perfect persistence, wherein as many of the players’ actions are persistent as possible. Once again, this is how we will cement our status as a “true” roleplay server.
• The setting must be interesting, and provide sparks for long-term and short-term development, while also allowing for easy creation of gameplay elements. We want a universe that can be easily integrated into the game as much as possible for many reasons: better new player onboarding, more representation of lore in-game, and easy creation of gameplay elements.

With that all out of the way, it’s time to finally present the second Next Big Thing – Project Anabasis!

Project Anabasis

To allow for all of these objectives to come into fruition, the setting will be changing accordingly. It should be very clear at this point that what we have now cannot work for what we want to accomplish with Aurora.

You will be playing as freelancers in a freelancer ship, nominally owned by an independent freelancing group but at the same time entirely free to pursue your own goals. In the future setting of Aurora, freelancer and mercenary groups will have carved out a major place in the galactic order, and thus you will be able to shape your destiny as you see fit, to antagonize or help whichever corporation or government you desire – as long as you keep the money flowing! In this shattered, recovering universe, you can only rely on yourselves, and nobody else. This new setting will emphasize freedom for characters in both their actions and creation.

The main avenue of gameplay will be away site exploration, which will feed all of the departments on the ship in a circular way – no department will be interdependent, everyone will have their way to contribute to the ship’s designs and the way in which they can do so will be varied. You may either contribute directly, or by making the work of another department easier. We want to stimulate as much active interaction with other departments as possible.

One of the basis of this new setting is the loss of technology. While I won’t reveal too many details about this just yet, we are aiming for a large setback in terms of the general technology in the galaxy. Phoron technology will be rare, and most importantly, extremely powerful. Away sites will be filled with relics of a bygone age – a gilded age of prosperity, but also greed – for your characters to explore and find out more about a past that is now lost to time… or that they may have lived through.

Departments will be redesigned with four technology tiers in mind, starting from rough, slower, less effective tools to highly experimental relic tools. This will allow us to segment and diversify gameplay, allowing for more dynamic interactions, the gating of resources or procedures, and so on. In general, we want the ship characters to have a reason to use worse or rougher tools. One good example of this is ghetto surgery – perhaps one of the things that feel the best and most exciting to do in game, yet there is never any reason to do it. We don’t want this to be the case, and as such we had to normalize the level of technology in the galaxy to a lower level.

Speaking of technology, Science will be reworked from the ground-up into a Fabrication department whose purpose is to collect data, relics, and lost technology from away sites, and reprocess this data into usable semi-persistent technology for other department. This means that if an advanced design is discovered, it will persist for a certain amount of rounds rather than immediately fading away. These technologies will be powerful and use limited resources, so use them wisely!

Away sites, and exploration in general, including combat, the medical system, and the ship combat system, will be redesigned from the ground up and become central elements of gameplay design. It will not be possible to progress past a certain tier of technology for your department without participating in away sites and extracting certain items or data from them, and neither will it be possible to complete the round’s objective without visiting them. Away sites will be turned from random shotgunned ruins into dynamic, major gameplay elements akin to dungeons with varying dynamic difficulty courtesy of a Director subsystem. 

• We expect to build away sites with a gameplay duration of an hour to an hour and a half on average. 
• Transportation to away sites will, of course, be facilitated to allow this. 
• This also means that we will aim for a lot less away sites, but that are a lot bigger and have a lot more quality to them in scope.

As many things as possible will be persistent. The ship we operate on will have its main persistent resource be money, which will be affected by the characters’ actions and by their success or failure in the main gamemode.

Money is what the setting runs on! It is finite, persistent, and has sprawling effects on everything. It used for many things, such as resources, specialist tooling, and is passively consumed for ship maintenance. Money will affect as many things as possible on the ship – from general living conditions such as whether the floors and walls are dirty, to the starting equipment of a department, to the available food and drinks in the mess hall, to the starting situations of the characters.

This all ties into the main gamemode and purpose of the ship: the Contracts gamemode, the pillar upon which everything is built. The ship (its Captain, failing that its Acting Captain, failing that still the crew by democratic vote) will be able to select a contract to fulfill that rewards a certain amount of money depending on the request and its difficulty rank. Different departments will be able to select sub-contracts to contribute to the multiplier of credits rewarded. Contracts is meant to be an evolution of Odyssey. Storytellers will be supported, but not necessary at all for the purposes of the gamemode.

Away ships will be central elements of the gameplay loop. We will be cutting down on the amount of away ships that can spawn while making them higher quality, permanently canon, and involved in the gameplay loop. Away ships will be able to either interfere or help in the ship’s contract, with no more ambiguity to their purpose in the round. Will they decide to aid you in your objectives, or will they decide to claim the reward for themselves and stop you?

That’s all I have to say for now! You are free to ask questions, of course, and remember that as each of these points are developed in depth, development diaries will be made to keep you guys updated. Lastly, if this proposal interests you at all, please consider contributing or applying to be a developer. To make this come true, we need as much manpower as possible, and every little bit helps. You can inquire about any information on this by messaging me on Discord.

As for the setting…

(credit to Sammy/Nauticall for the teaser image)

Stay tuned for the next Development Diary!

[Kelnor]

Based AF logo.

I agree with the problems, if I'm being honest, I've been avoiding antags for about a year now, recently even going so far as ditching my entire sec roster specifically. Interacting with the antags felt like risking a ban because you forgot, or didn't fully comprehend a massively Byzantian ruleset. But at the same time, every one of those rules had a reason and, arguably was needed. And all you got in return was something that, even when amazing antag gameplay/roleplay, was getting retconned in under an hour. Hard to care about a character (the antag) that never even existed.

I started RPing at the bar with my homies, dreading getting called away because of shenanigans, or a gremorian outbreak, or four dudes with guns rocking up and yelling for everyone to get on the floor.

When I received a ban for how I dealt with the antags recently, my first thought was "Man, now I can't chill with my friends for three days." Which turned into, is interacting with the antag worth risking that again?

The answer was no.

+200 on this change.

I can't express how much that logo rocks again btw.

Edited 4 hours ago by Kelnor

[Hesphos]

I'm very glad there is some reflection and consciousness that emerged on a staff based level. I've preached about this in 2021 but it all fell on deaf ears so I gave up.

Corporate settings really only work when the Corporations are profit driven scumbags. A nice inclusive environment doesn't create conflict or a need to do anything. Why is food and liquor free? As an example.


The current setting could still work if you moved it to say, Eridani V. Its a defunct mining world for the Eridani Federation, it would tie in with the whole relic gathering as well. Imagine you have a corporate mega building build mostly vertically and a huge recycling center at its base that processes mined materials and found scrap. You have conflict every round because production quota's need to be met, there is huge wealth inequality and outside the megabuilding spire there are outlaw populations of IPC's and dregs.

In a setting like this we could have corpo oppression, wealth inequality, firefights in the lower complexes with Corp troops, the Sol Alliance Army, Freedom fighters, rogue IPCs, Dregs, smuggler pirates. Not to mention, if you moved the main game world to a planet. You could have actual firefights and explosions without half the ship losing atmosphere and popping everyone's lungs. You could still have shuttles and spaceships launching from the spaceport to explore the Eridani Solar system of course. Lots of derelicts and chicanery going on there if you crave void combat.

I want to play a medical doctor that turns away poor people because their health insurance doesn't cover a surgery, I want to be a corrupt corp trooper taking bribes to look the other way, I want to be a scientist that restores old relic mining technology and then sell it to increase the corps bottom line. I want to be a factory prole doing hard unsafe labor, workplace accidents galore. I want to be a penal soldier fighting to keep order with a shock collar around my neck and turn on my former masters if the guy holding the remote goes down.

Long story short, im glad a big change is coming as im sure it will keep the game more interesting.

Sapient life is cheap, the wrath of shareholders knows no bounds.

[Arbiter_Ambrose]

Hm, while this sounds like we won't really have as much military offships and offships are going to be very specifically tied to the main ship in a way I don't like, I am looking forward to seeing what happens because I know that this is probably been thought over alot harder than me, this focus on persistence seems interesting and I am very very curious to see what my favourite lore elements turn into from this new change though also a bit frightened obviously.