The current community climate and why you should talk to me

[Doomberg]

Allow me to start with an accurate

of how we have been acting, as a community, in the past month.

Now that we've made that clear, I have an honest question to ask. What do you want? Yes, you, the reader. Do you know? I have the distinct feeling you may not. Consider this an invitation to figure that out. If you need help with figuring it out, you're free to PM me or contact me through whatever means. If you think you already know, you're strongly encouraged to give me a concise summary of your issues through whatever channels you see fit, preferably choosing one through which we can have a normal, private conversation, uninterrupted by the various mooing and roaring and growling prevalent on the forums.

You're also free to post your main concerns here, taking into account two points:

 

• This is not for open debate, arguing, or anything of that sort.
• I reserve the right to delete any posts I feel don't belong here.

[Skull132]

The topic has some assumptions in it. And I can understand how it can probably offend or scratch.

But, hopefully it's a start?

My main concern, as I already raised to you: the guards set up on either side, and the somewhat clearly noticeable separation of staff and community. If the situation could be remedied, specially on the forums, then both sides would probably be more open to communication and discussion. And, you know. Actual fucking cooperation. Sounds neat, doesn't it? How to achieve it? Weell. We can stop by assuming, all of us. I've seen both sides carry assumptions that border on ridiculous, this leads to very select tools for communication, that shove the other side onto the defensive too early. And this ends with nothing constructive coming out of anything. Ever. Otherwise, re-establish communication, re-align the sights, so that the image that both sides are seeing is the same, and go from there.

TL;DR: talk more. And no, I don't consider what either side has been indulging in for the past few months as talk. It's something more kekworthy.

[Five-Oh]

I'll separate my post in two sections, addressing staff and community respectively.

Staff

I've literally no complaints on that front and while my current status as a newcomer could serve as grounds to dismiss my view on things, I believe an unbiased, fresh opinion can be quite helpful at times. I've personally gone through a number of scenarios in which I, myself, saw fit to contact staff to clear up inconsistencies, misunderstandings or to request aid in regards to server specific etiquette and rules. My a-help handlers were generally friendly, on point and questions were addressed in a timely manner. Like indicated earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if people who share a history with certain staff-members have a different POV, but that's to be expected on any platform. No position in the world'll exempt human beings from taking past experiences into consideration when dealing with others. Delivering an a-grade performance wouldn't shield any group of people controlling the fates of others from complaints either, at least not in my experience. Point being; be as good at your job as you may, there'll always be someone who's frustrated with the course of events.

In any case, as a new member of the community I can only say that I feel welcomed in that respect.

Community

As indicated previously, in a different post, I'm not new to roleplay, nor to SS13, though I have to admit that I still haven't nearly grasped all of SS13's mechanics and intricacies. A couple of things I've noticed, things that aren't necessarily SS13 RP related;

1.)

people like to form cliques. Quite naturally so both IC and OOC, and on just about any platform dedicated to serious roleplay (and other genres, but that's besides the point). The big difference I noticed in regards to SS13, speaking from personal experience this seems to be the case on Aurora as well, is that players/characters will consistently outright ignore your attempts at interaction. Sophisticated as they may be, it don't matter (apparently). Could never quite wrap my head around that fact, admittedly it's my #1 motivation killer. Weirdly enough, it doesn't need to be a hectic situation for this to take place, nor does it seem to matter whether you're interacting with a newbie or experienced member. The only thing that'll seemingly have an effect is your position on station, meaning people'll have to interact with your character if you're a head, but even then players seem likely to voluntarily limit their vocabulary to one, or two word sentences.

2.)

seems to be the case that the line between IC and OOC's very blurry at times and things get mixed up to a generally speaking unacceptable extent. I'll be specific in that regard, as it I find it an important factor to how enjoyable a round'll turn out to be.

- your character's an employee on a research facility. Act like one, even if you're not happy with your peers, especially if you're not happy with your superiors. Think of your actual job, implying you're old enough. Actual people, employees do what their told, if they want to keep their job. If you have complaints, bring em forth through the proper channels. The public radio channel isn't included on that list. It's just an immersion breaker whenever there's a lengthy proverbial battle going on about who's actually dumber than who, and why. Granted, some people will always slip through the cracks, despite the company being of the multi-billion dollar types, but there's a fine line between being unprofessional, somewhat inept, deliberately corrupt OR just outright retarded.

- nobody likes smartasses. I swear, I can't count the number of arguments I've seen in which there's a back and forth about section Y, paragraph X in regards to dealing with situation Z. People don't walk about with SOPs written on the palms of their hands. It's generally not an IC thing, not in a majority of cases anyway. I get that certain characters'll always be finicky, especially if it suits their role, but if you're a janitor and you happen to have the wikipage up in case of emergency, don't knock an engineer for setting up the engine and skipping a step. If it doesn't concern you, don't let your ego get the best of you and let the standard of communication decline to the level of a petty schoolyard argument.

- harm-batoning. I really, really don't know where this whole misconception came from, but allow me to set things straight on that front; yes, whipping someone over and over with a baton (or any other weapon for that matter) is unnecessary and certainly warrants the label and the SS13 specific category shit-curity, especially if it's done for little to no reason. Regardless, I'd like to ask you to do some research on actual police-related video footage. Resistance leading to scuffles, usually results in bruises, and additional injuries depending on the severity of the offense and resistance put forth by the opposition. My main point is: if you happen to see someone get whacked with a baton, and the blood sprite shows, it's utterly unrealistic and irrational to call that out and address it (worst case scenario) as using the "harm" intent. Doesn't need to be that exact wording, the concept alone is just stupid.

Playing an aggressive and/or unprofessional (security) officer does not warrant the label "bad roleplayer". Make sure you understand the reasoning behind a character's actions before judging them. And do me a personal favor; bear in mind that I'm not including anyone in this explanation, who figures that clubbing everyone half to death is fine because their character's a hardass aaaaall the god damn time.

- lastly, roleplaying an (antisocial) asshole is perfectly fine in my books. Just bear in mind that even the biggest jerks in the world will abide to a limited number of social rules when in an professional environment. You can lose your job! I know persistence between rounds isn't exactly SS13's strong suit, but have some decency and take into consideration that, realistically speaking, your character would be done in all regards if he legit pokes someone up with a screwdriver at his job. So if you're adamant about not giving your character up after such potentially life altering incidents, at least update your character records accordingly and maybe pick a position befitting of such a character. Meaning don't simply sign up for jobs that require a higher security clearance (or even security itself!) if your character's done things that would realistically prevent him from going down that path. Don't just consider yourself but also others, it's immersion breaking to see someone who's completely flipped his shit in the previous round, only to sign up as the warden in the following shift.

That's all I got for now, like I said it should be taken with a grain of salt as not all of the above applies to this server and/or platform only. Some of these are almost a given with unscripted, free-flow roleplay, but they can be altered for the better with a little bit of individual effort from all parties involved.

[Dreamix]

Staff: There is nothing really much to say about in-game staff, my ahelps were usually answered, griefers were banned, things happened how they should happen. However, there are some questionable antics on forum side of staff. Mainly about deleting posts, but that is probably being dealt with. Also, custom items applications are dead, quoting This's post: "no custom items until June 20th"

Community: Stuff that irks me. Currently we are experiencing a sudden increase of low/medium-RP players:

2. Players that include psychology of a character in flavor text, they may require linking to our flavor text guide. But they are trying, at least.
   
4. There are also players that play over-powered ex-commando pirate ERT baddass-es, characters that are overly-qualified, IPC's that change professions (once round officer, another CE). That's just immersion-breaking. Captain/HoP/head characters that arrive as assistants are just "why?". "I have a well-paid job as a Captain, better arrive as assistant. Wait, there already is a Captain on Aurora? Better arrive as assistant, even if there are lots of other stations."
6. Also, there are really troublemaking, goon-origin characters. Not griefers, not baldies, just characters that are constantly harrasing others, breaking into areas, ignoring regulations, and generally being dicks. They are doing things, that warrant security response, brigging and things, but not admin actions or a complaint. Every round. They don't even think "Should my character be fired for this?". I have a feeling that incident reports won't really help, as they do not really care.
   
8. There is also a 'wave' of characters that do not want to 'rot in prison' after being told that it's just a 10-minute charge.
   
10. Security officers are also a problem, lately, arrest are performed with 'no mercy'. "He might have a gun, better stun-baton-cuff him". No talking, just arresting.
    
12. Security roles are not really played to role-play, but to catch antags, some regulars even say "If you can't drop somebody with two shots, you shouldn't probably play officer". I just want to role-play, not fear that officer will cuff me/antagg will shot me with a revolver while I am typing.
    
14. There is also shit-curity characters, that are played like a main character in a game, "collecting" prisoners like points to raise a high score. Lately, I was even asked by a player, why I uncuffed him while her was in a cell. That player was probably used to shit-curity.
    
16. Also, there are overly metagamey players. That can be mainly observed during malf-ai of some sort (traitor, malf, or laws changed). Generally, AI and cyborgs are considered as 'faulty' and prone to malfunction. Small sign of disobeyence is a warrant to storm AI core. I will quote B12 wiki: "AI's and Cyborgs are not normally known to malfunction", while on our server, it is exactly otherwise. Our lore even says that: http://aurorastation.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=3150#p31692
    
18. There are also powergamey players, such as sciencists maxing research levels during the first 5 minutes of a round, or security/engineers that constantly wear 3 or 2 flashlights turned on, to have their screen fully lit in case of going into maints. There are also engineers that try to find door wires, during high-pop round, with AI and two borgs. "I will probably won't need to know door wires, as there is AI... But, what if AI will go malf? They malfunction everyday, right?
    
20. Also, AI's and borgs are treated like game NPC's, "Borg, open this", or just forgotten completely.
    
22. Also, I am pretty sad about those who recently left : (

 

I am aware that those issues are really hard to fix, even if said players care about incident reports you can't constantly fill reports on everyone, and Admins can't talk to everyone about things I just listed, and ban those who refuse to comply.

I would like to apologise for probably bad grammar. English is not my native-language.

[K0NFL1QT]

What do you want?

 

Right now, for me, the deal breaker is the map. I've been vocal about its redesign since it happened. Most people seem to agree with at least some of my map criticisms, but some people actually like it. I haven't really played since it was deemed appropriate enough 'for now' until we get a completely new map. But if that was the case, why make the intermediary step so much more worse than what it used to be? People asked for a redesign of the bridges meeting room and maybe the AI core, and what we got was a total transplant of Security, Command, AI and Civilian areas. Yes, the AI Core needed a definate rework, but changing half the station to accomodate was too much.

After that, it's IPCs being unable to self-repair. I love the new synthetic sheathing, buggy as it is, but being unable to rewire my own hand or patch a dent in my own leg is just silly. As much as I dislike it for borgs, it's just about acceptable considering borgs are generally bound by laws to throw themselves into conflict to defend organics and it's a given that they are meant to see the Roboticist for repairs. For IPCs I get that it's for 'anti-powergame' reasons, which sounds reasonable on the surface, but to look at it deeper reveals how infeasible that would be. So, you'd have a welder in one hand and a weapon in the other. If it's ranged then you're going to have issues with reloading, that will force you to stop and shuffle items. Even if it's melee, the opponent can largely run away/shoot you. And if they don't, having to manage target clicking to hit with selecting the area to target for damage, and then your own repairs will be a nightmare easily overcome by a disarm spamming assistant with nothing else to micromanage but disarming and running away. Add on the fact that IPC limbs are very easy to remove through damage and you get basically all IPCs being burdened with crippling dependency to stop the very rare IPC going on a powergame murderspree.

These are my main points of contention. Scopes is amazing for all the work he does. I've never had a problem with the in game staff. They are lovely people. My only sour interaction with forum staff was the recent 'this never happened' mentality, but I'm sure the forum staff are equally lovely people with a tendancy towards overzealous purging. But only because they want the forum to be a clean and friendly place for us to discuss things. Censorship and thread purging do not contribute to that atmosphere, I hope it is a lesson learned. Most of the players are lovely people too, and those who are not are easily identified and largely ignored. Even the occasional griff can be chuckled off. This is a great community of people who are passionate about roleplay, and roleplay specifically within a worklike spacestation environment. With passion comes strong ideas about how things should be, and there will be inevitable conflicts. You can't please all of the people all of the time. What Aurora needs is a strong and present Headmin to say 'this is where we are, this is where we're going, take it or leave it'. At least that way the players can decide for themselves if Aurora is where they want to play.