Suggestion: General Reduction in alternative races

[JKJudgeX]

I would like to suggest that no more alternative races be added to Aurora without removing/limiting applications to other races, and in conjunction with this rejecting the vast majority of race whitelist requests from here on out.

Why?

I find many of them to be OP and meta-enablers. Want free insulated gloves every round without being in a role that should have access to them? Put in a whitelist app. Want to be immune to chemicals and atmospheric attacks? Put in a whitelist app. Want self healing at the cost of walking slow? Put in a whitelist app. Now, go forth and abuse these powers as you see fit!

And...

Talking about lore and having a speech impediment isn't the gold standard of RP, and it sure is overdone. Not having an easy "go-to" RP Trope keeps people focused on the shift, which facilitates both meaningful SS13 gameplay AND Role-playing. "Let's examine how snowflake I am" takes away from "Is the Captain acting strange? Let's keep an eye out and ask around." And yeah, sorry to throw the term "snowflake" but to many of the players I see on Aurora, the continued exposition of race and lore elements is being used as a SUBSTITUTE for RP.

Anyway, it's going to be an unpopular suggestion and everyone hates me anyway, but I wanted to throw that out there in an attempt to bring a little normalcy back to the server and shift some of the focus to the gamemode, which I believe FACILITATES RP instead of taking away from it, without going to the tired to death "OOC racism" that's super popular.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Guest

[Frances]

Sounds to me like you might be upset with the design of the races themselves, and in this case it would be better to look at how we can rework these designs, rather than limit their impact on the game.

The mechanical balance stuff should probably get its own thread for every species (with Tajaran and Unathi claws being the only obvious problem I can think of atm - I've never seen someone call Dionaeas OP before, but I guess I've seen everything now).

As for species lore detracting from RP, though, what do you mean?

[JKJudgeX]

I did ask you specifically, not to reply to my forum posts. You're free to comment of course but I'm not going to engage you on this or any other topic by answering your questions.

[Guest]

Welcome to our community. You will receive feedback and varying responses based on the input you provide on our forums.

[JKJudgeX]

Welcome to our community. You will receive feedback and varying responses based on the input you provide on our forums.

Thanks, I've been here for a long time, and played on Aurora for much longer than I've been on the forums, but I appreciate the warm sentiment.

I don't speak up often, but I'm a lot of those "views" on people's posts that aren't accompanied with a reply.

[Guest]

Meh. I mean, honestly, I have four alien races ripped from a long-dead russian TBS/RPG that I could suggest; with their own unique (yet forcibly established) lore, personalities and et cetera that very clearly differentiate themselves from humans, so it would be close to impossible for either objectively 'bad' roleplayers or just amateurs to create an unoriginal self-insert with little other than trope-based archetypes going for them. I personally dislike the idea of, "Remove diversity on the basis that said diversity is actively creating uninteresting roleplay scenarios with their whitelisted privilege", as it punishes the whitelistees that are either doing nothing to attribute to the problem or are actively attempting to make the image of their subgroup of whitelistees somewhat more bearable. It also actively drives away newer players who haven't proved themselves to be ignorant or incompetent, from wanting to apply for any of the races out of general interest.

Yet, I like browsing the suggestions forum. You'd be surprised to see how actually creative people are, but in order to ensure quality on the server, we do have to perform analysis and take into account what the suggestions bring to the server.

 

Why?

I find most of them to be OP and meta-enablers. Want free insulated gloves every round without being in a role that should have access to them? Put in a whitelist app. Want to be immune to chemicals and atmospheric attacks? Put in a whitelist app. Want self healing at the cost of walking slow? Put in a whitelist app. Now, go forth and abuse these powers as you see fit!

 

You have somewhat conveniently forgotten that some of these races have rather inconvenient weaknesses, excluding Tajara and Unathi. Although, as Unathi, I've frequently caught out-of-the-blue influenza cases that cause my body temperature to skyrocket. Vaurca and IPCs get fried from EMP or ion blasts. Diona die extremely fast from weedkiller or by fire. I didn't really apply for IPC to be immune from chemical or atmospheric attacks, I applied for it so I could be a sentient, unlawed, with-hands robot. Beep boop. I didn't apply for the Tajaran whitelist so I could put on mesons and pretend they're nightvision goggles. I didn't apply for Unathi to get up from stuns faster and ignore a percentage of brute (both of which are lies, there's nothing in the code that suggests they do), and so on.

While it is a bit far-fetched from an argumentative standpoint to accuse that every whitelist holder only applied for their whitelist just so they can establish pointless combat metas that ultimately still fall short of any chemistry powergaming, it should be noted that whitelist holders who do fill that description normally undergo more scrutiny as a player anyway, and eventually lose their whitelist as a result.

I don't think anybody gives a shit about how robust anyone thinks they are. What matters to the people of this community, from what I've seen, is the ability for someone to create interesting situations and are moderately adept at storytelling. When I log onto the server and join in as any character, not only do I expect some level of creativeness from myself, but I expect the same from others to create interesting situations for other people without going overboard. Everyone has a role to play, and they are expected to hold themselves to server standards before their own personal standards. That's just how it goes.

I've seen what happens to people who try very hard to 1-up other characters or even the round antagonist. They suffer. They die. They 'lose'. Their round becomes just as shitty as everyone else's round was just because of their actions. And they often blame other people, and then wonder why everyone dislikes them.

The issue with the server, as it has been for a very long time but I like to think many of the regulars are actually trying to suppress, is that we have a consistent influx of people who don't understand what 'heavy' roleplay standards are, and often think they can get away with being a destructive nitwit and try to pass it off as though they were trying to 'make things interesting'. More often than not, they break roleplay or break character to go off on a tangent of being a massive dummy that only cares about winning. It's depressing that it extends not only to balds, but also to a few (note, this is way less than before but the issue is less wide-spread now) alien players.

The only real solution is to wait and see, and then hit the whitelist abusers with a giant stick when they crap in someone else's yard. No point in punishing the many for the actions of the few. I highly doubt that some of the problem players are even trying to represent their fictional alien race in the server fiction at all.

[Skull132]

I don't. I'm sorry, I am unable to understand your mode of thought?

First, yeah, we probably aren't going to be adding any new races anymore. We have enough. The Vaurca were an old, stalled project, though. And I think it's neat to have something to call our own on that front (albeit, perhaps not as unique as I would have wanted it to be).

Second, I think you're making a mistake in presuming that this:

Want free insulated gloves every round without being in a role that should have access to them? Put in a whitelist app. Want to be immune to chemicals and atmospheric attacks? Put in a whitelist app. Want self healing at the cost of walking slow? Put in a whitelist app. Now, go forth and abuse these powers as you see fit!

That this is the reason why people apply for a whitelist. If this were indeed the case, would Diona, Vaurca, and IPCs not be the most popular races played? Well, let's investigate. Go here and see the stats for yourself: http://rsc.skullnet.me/workspace/phpPdoExample/test.php

These are all of the different whitelists issued. Were your theory correct, one would see a lot more whitelists for Diona, IPC, and Vaurca. This is not the case, as you can see from the numbers.

Then there's also the question of which races are most actively played on the server. There is no hardcoded way to get stats on that right now, though there will be soon, Scopes and I did investigate it back in August. The most played races at that time were Tajarans. Followed up very closely by IPCs and Unathi. Diona were, and are, as sparse as the Skrell and Vaurca. So your theory and claim lacks hard ground to stand on.

This brings me to another point. The entire blight of the SS13 alien races is that they are all too close to humans. And yet, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to add a little, take a little. This is sort of why the Vaurca are glass cannons, same with IPCs, the Diona are ineffective in combat unless actually armed with a laser. They all have neat abilities yes, but also drawbacks that guide these abilities to be mostly utility based. And even then, and this is the main point, I still have enough faith in our playerbase to think that very few of them actually share your mentality, and believe that most of them are interested in a given species for other, more RP oriented reasons.

Onto the second point in original post. This one:

Talking about lore and having a speech impediment isn't the gold standard of RP, and it sure is overdone. Not having an easy "go-to" RP Trope keeps people focused on the shift, which facilitates both meaningful SS13 gameplay AND Role-playing. "Let's examine how snowflake I am" takes away from "Is the Captain acting strange? Let's keep an eye out and ask around." And yeah, sorry to throw the term "snowflake" but to many of the players I see on Aurora, the continued exposition of race and lore elements is being used as a SUBSTITUTE for RP.

 

I don't even know what to say about this, tbh. Surely you understand that mechanics enable and make RP, right? Mechanics enforce lore, and create an environment in which to roleplay. I truly do hate to pull this card, but I've been on this server since the start. I have seen humans do the, "Examine how snowflake I am," routine a hundreds times worse than most alien characters. Ergo, it is not locked to aliens only, as you imply it is.

And at the end, I have never seen lore, of all things, be used as a substitute for RP. I don't even see how that's possible? What do you mean by this?

[Guest]

And yeah, sorry to throw the term "snowflake" but to many of the players I see on Aurora, the continued exposition of race and lore elements is being used as a SUBSTITUTE for RP.

 

It's hardly a statement in itself, as it proves nothing and makes no sense.

[JKJudgeX]

I don't. I'm sorry, I am unable to understand your mode of thought?

First, yeah, we probably aren't going to be adding any new races anymore. We have enough. The Vaurca were an old, stalled project, though. And I think it's neat to have something to call our own on that front (albeit, perhaps not as unique as I would have wanted it to be).

Second, I think you're making a mistake in presuming that this:

Want free insulated gloves every round without being in a role that should have access to them? Put in a whitelist app. Want to be immune to chemicals and atmospheric attacks? Put in a whitelist app. Want self healing at the cost of walking slow? Put in a whitelist app. Now, go forth and abuse these powers as you see fit!

That this is the reason why people apply for a whitelist. If this were indeed the case, would Diona, Vaurca, and IPCs not be the most popular races played? Well, let's investigate. Go here and see the stats for yourself: http://rsc.skullnet.me/workspace/phpPdoExample/test.php

These are all of the different whitelists issued. Were your theory correct, one would see a lot more whitelists for Diona, IPC, and Vaurca. This is not the case, as you can see from the numbers.

Then there's also the question of which races are most actively played on the server. There is no hardcoded way to get stats on that right now, though there will be soon, Scopes and I did investigate it back in August. The most played races at that time were Tajarans. Followed up very closely by IPCs and Unathi. Diona were, and are, as sparse as the Skrell and Vaurca. So your theory and claim lacks hard ground to stand on.

This brings me to another point. The entire blight of the SS13 alien races is that they are all too close to humans. And yet, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to add a little, take a little. This is sort of why the Vaurca are glass cannons, same with IPCs, the Diona are ineffective in combat unless actually armed with a laser. They all have neat abilities yes, but also drawbacks that guide these abilities to be mostly utility based. And even then, and this is the main point, I still have enough faith in our playerbase to think that very few of them actually share your mentality, and believe that most of them are interested in a given species for other, more RP oriented reasons.

Onto the second point in original post. This one:

Talking about lore and having a speech impediment isn't the gold standard of RP, and it sure is overdone. Not having an easy "go-to" RP Trope keeps people focused on the shift, which facilitates both meaningful SS13 gameplay AND Role-playing. "Let's examine how snowflake I am" takes away from "Is the Captain acting strange? Let's keep an eye out and ask around." And yeah, sorry to throw the term "snowflake" but to many of the players I see on Aurora, the continued exposition of race and lore elements is being used as a SUBSTITUTE for RP.

 

I don't even know what to say about this, tbh. Surely you understand that mechanics enable and make RP, right? Mechanics enforce lore, and create an environment in which to roleplay. I truly do hate to pull this card, but I've been on this server since the start. I have seen humans do the, "Examine how snowflake I am," routine a hundreds times worse than most alien characters. Ergo, it is not locked to aliens only, as you imply it is.

And at the end, I have never seen lore, of all things, be used as a substitute for RP. I don't even see how that's possible? What do you mean by this?

 

1) For 1138: I didn't forget those "disadvantages"... they just aren't that bad. Oh no, I can be EMP'ed doesn't add up to a "but I'm immune to being drugged!" and very difficult to "kill". Diona moving slow is pretty bad, but the regeneration etc is more than ample buff to that nerf.

2) According to your numbers, IPCs (in my view clearly the most OP of the lot, and about 70% of what I'm talking abou there), have HUGE numbers. Is it that playing an IPC is super-duper fun because their lore causes gratification, or do you think that maybe SOME players threw in that whitelist app because it makes them tougher to kill or incapacitate? Vaurca are pretty crazy strongin a couple of ways, but they are also very new, so I think their numbers being low is likely temporary, and their inclusion was what prompted this post before they become an epidemic... already had a round where I interacted with 3 of them in the same shift... so... Robot-Cat-Bug-Station 13 is a go... and I wanted to slow that trend before it inflates to IPC levels of overplayedness. A limitation of "can't play a head" placed on a race should be a clear indicator that playing that race should come with the gravity and responsibility of playing a head, because that player is empowered, and allowing them to be a head while empowered would be overkill and unarguably OP... and that limitation should also come with a maximum population of players of that race on the Aurora at a given time, imo... or... we could just stop letting a hundred plus people play them.

3) Being different from humans isn't necessarily great or good. I preferred SS13 before the alien races were commonly played or even available on most servers. Not because I generally dislike aliens or other races in RPGs (I play halflings and monstrous races in D&D sometimes), but because their in-game implementation is not fun or necessarily balanced.

4)

[7:40:15 PM] Meowness: IPCs really are OP.

[7:40:20 PM] Meowness: And I love them for it.

[7:40:28 PM] Meowness: I made Anwar so I didn't have to worry about being fucked by lings.

At the height of the IPC tide, playing a changeling was pretty dry a few times.

RPG gamers have been dealing with Mary-Sue/Snowflake/Unbalanced races for a very long time. "High Magic" vs. "Low Magic" campaigns and which is better and other disagreements exist among RPers who are entitled, at least, to a preference.

I prefer "low magic" SS13, where "magic" is the availability of special abilities and immunities to the playerbase. This doesn't impact how much RP is expected, but it does take away the snowflake RP crutch or race-based lore-exposition, and highly limits meta-play and choosing overpowered things while pretending to want to RP those things.

There are plenty of threads and discussions relating to how overpowered some of these races are, I thought I'd make one clearly outlining that I don't think that playing a special race makes you a good RPer by default just because you wrote up a ballin' whitelist app, either.

[JKJudgeX]

And yeah, sorry to throw the term "snowflake" but to many of the players I see on Aurora, the continued exposition of race and lore elements is being used as a SUBSTITUTE for RP.

 

It's hardly a statement in itself, as it proves nothing and makes no sense.

 

I guess you're having a hard time understanding what I'm saying. Regurgitating lore isn't good RP. Reacting as though that lore has an appropriate amount of weight on your characters actions and decisions is good RP. The latter is not as common as the former, in my experience.

This is not a criticism of the many good RPers of Aurora. This is a suggestion to curtail the attraction of more of the bad ones, and disable some avenues of powergaming.

Lore regurgitation/reciting lore is a well-known Roleplaying crutch. People are tired of rum-swilling Scottish dwarves, and characters named after or stolen from book, comic, or movie characters.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

What would the solution to your problems be, in the end? Boiled down to the foundation, what is it you want? Do you want the unique mechanics of aliens removed? Do you want the alien races themselves removed?

With Unathi specifically, after I seized them and put myself in charge of them I've worked them as best as I am able to avoid forcing unathi players into stereotypical archetypes. The lore of the lizards is meant to impact lizards just as human lore is meant to impact humans. They're just as diverse as humanity.

Are you suggesting that the mechanics of the race detracts from their potential to roleplay? I've only ever seen two unathi whitelists abused during my tenure watching over them, and neither of them were abusing the mechanics of the race. (It's rather difficult to abuse unathi mechanics do since honestly no one who knows better fights unarmed anyway)

[Skull132]

2) According to your numbers, IPCs (in my view clearly the most OP of the lot, and about 70% of what I'm talking abou there), have HUGE numbers.

All fine and good until you realize that interests in the IPCs was high right after their initial implimentation over a year and a half ago. They were always popular, for one reason or another. And in the old code, they were not all that different from hunams. Not even OP. And yet we had a large amount of applications pass through at that time. Your point is invalid.

 

Is it that playing an IPC is super-duper fun because their lore causes gratification, or do you think that maybe SOME players threw in that whitelist app because it makes them tougher to kill or incapacitate?

 

You are silly-aggressive for discussing this topic. I really don't get why. You presume the worst of your fellow players. I mean, I'd like to think that I'm about as cynical as people can get, but I still have faith in them to actually pick a race to play for the RP properties first and foremost. And I can bet you, on a large sum of money, that I am correct.

 

already had a round where I interacted with 3 of them in the same shift... so... Robot-Cat-Bug-Station 13 is a go... and I wanted to slow that trend before it inflates to IPC levels of overplayedness. A limitation of "can't play a head" placed on a race should be a clear indicator that playing that race should come with the gravity and responsibility of playing a head, because that player is empowered, and allowing them to be a head while empowered would be overkill and unarguably OP... and that limitation should also come with a maximum population of players of that race on the Aurora at a given time, imo... or... we could just stop letting a hundred plus people play them.

 

Hyperboles are all fun and good until you read what I said. These are all whitelists issued over the course of the server's player database being up. Said database is 1 year old. We traffic anywhere from 100 to 250 unique players per day. (Stats outdated, and I broke something so I can't get the exact numbers.) If 100 of all, 8 thousand entries, have an IPC whitelist, then you'll probably be very lucky if you run into 50 player with an IPC whitelist every day. (Realistically, I predict the number to be closer to 20.) This does not take into account the fact that a player having a whitelist does not mean a person playing the race he has a whitelist for. So, really, you'll run into about 1-3 IPCs per round, if not 0. Though, in the interests of stats, I will be coding the game to send reports of whitelists used. As I am curious about how accurate my predictions above are.

 

3) Being different from humans isn't necessarily great or good. I preferred SS13 before the alien races were commonly played or even available on most servers. Not because I generally dislike aliens or other races in RPGs (I play halflings and monstrous races in D&D sometimes), but because their in-game implementation is not fun or necessarily balanced.

 

I'll just post this reddit thread here. It'll sum up my thoughts on aliens being human-like. I suggest reading all of it for a full picture.

 

4)

[7:40:15 PM] Meowness: IPCs really are OP.

[7:40:20 PM] Meowness: And I love them for it.

[7:40:28 PM] Meowness: I made Anwar so I didn't have to worry about being fucked by lings.

At the height of the IPC tide, playing a changeling was pretty dry a few times.

 

Yes. 5 machines, at worst, out of a crew of 30 or 40. This is the second instance where you've shown an inability to accept target variability as a valid ingame mechanic. The unfortunate fact is: it's going keep existing, as long as it doesn't get too bad. And all of the examples you've raised on the subject have been hyperbolic and moot. Ergo, I am of the belief that it is not too bad. (Not to mention the fact that Meowy was probably being half-joking, knowing them.)

 

I thought I'd make one clearly outlining that I don't think that playing a special race makes you a good RPer by default just because you wrote up a ballin' whitelist app, either.

 

I have yet to run into a person who thinks like this. Again, expectations. I think you're projecting your bad experiences onto the playerbase here, and trying to put your thoughts into the heads of others.

 

Lore regurgitation/reciting lore is a well-known Roleplaying crutch.

 

Exact same issue with this, as with the last one. Further more, lore existing does not promote lore regurgitation outright. Infact, our lore, for the most part, leaves so much open that lore regurgitation as you display it is impossible.

[Frances]

oh wait yes i remember you you asked me to never reply to your posts after i made fun of you for comparing paperwork to rape

Aaaaaaaaaanyway we should probably let bygones be bygones and engage in the actual, intellectually stimulating conversation this thread should hopefully be slated to provide. (Honest.)

Lore regurgitation/reciting lore is a well-known Roleplaying crutch. People are tired of rum-swilling Scottish dwarves, and characters named after or stolen from book, comic, or movie characters.

I've had a particular interest in SS13's alien races for nearly two years (which is shameful. Nobody should spend that long nurturing an obscure interest on roleplaying aliens from a specific, little-known videogame.)

Over my time on Aurora, I've seen people roleplay aliens in a lot of ways. Some of them were good, some of them were shit. Contrary to what you're suggesting, I'd like to bring up that very little of what I've seen concerning the lore was objectively bad.

If anything, people ignore the lore a lot. Tajarans are supposed to be a race of conservative, somewhat repressed pre-wwii socialists, yet we've seen a lot of them act like sexually liberated hippie-revolutionists, trying to provoke furpiles and think they're the hottest thing for getting into a fight into security/whomever upon being called "cat".

That's a stereotype of the Tajaran player. A character who falls completely flat by following the lore to a tee while ignoring proper characterization... isn't. I have literally not seen one character fall flat because they weren't venturing far enough from the lore.

Now, characters who rely too much on popular tropes or Mary Sue-ish characteristics are pretty common. That's the biggest issue of immersion with aliens we've encountered (and species caretakers do their best to ensure this issue is curbed). But that's people that are ignoring the lore completely, not being constricted by it.

What would be some examples of "lore regurgitation" that you have seen? What are solutions to this problem you would propose, other than limiting the number of players for each race? (Because that doesn't make the races better, it just hides the bad.)

[JKJudgeX]

What would the solution to your problems be, in the end? Boiled down to the foundation, what is it you want? Do you want the unique mechanics of aliens removed? Do you want the alien races themselves removed?

With Unathi specifically, after I seized them and put myself in charge of them I've worked them as best as I am able to avoid forcing unathi players into stereotypical archetypes. The lore of the lizards is meant to impact lizards just as human lore is meant to impact humans. They're just as diverse as humanity.

Are you suggesting that the mechanics of the race detracts from their potential to roleplay? I've only ever seen two unathi whitelists abused during my tenure watching over them, and neither of them were abusing the mechanics of the race. (It's rather difficult to abuse unathi mechanics do since honestly no one who knows better fights unarmed anyway)

 

Ideally, if the races exist to satisfy an actual RP itch to play something other than human, that's cool, but they really could just be skins. The mechanical differences are okay if they weren't so "all or nothing"... and I wasn't even really refering to Unathi or Tajaran, though Tajarans are very much overplayed.

It's a difficult subject to approach, to be honest, because people have emotional attachments to their creations and the things they are responsible for, and people who are already whitelisted mostly don't deserve a nerf or having their characters reverted into humans... but I think that if no one approaches the subject, we'll just see more and more people whitelisted for alien races and the general feel of SS13 on Aurora will turn to a very alien world... which I think sucks for RP reasons, as well as mechanical ones.

I just prefer a more structured setting, where most people are more similar, and I don't feel like I need to read 19 books of lore in order to feel like an actual citizen of NT.

To bring in a pen and paper comparison, many players do not enjoy Faerun ("Forgotten Realms") because it has been added onto and expanded for too long, and is laborious to become immersed in. Many players prefer a more flat and easy to understand gameworld such as that of Mystara, which has fewer related novels, stories, and intensely detailed regional write-ups. It provides better RP because your character didn't need to know when "shieldmeet" took place or who the governor of the local region's brother is in order to integrate. Some people prefer one way, some people prefer the other. I prefer the "less is more" approach, because it reduces the amount of time we spend getting history lessons and having to learn things from outside of the game's interface (Which I do not like to leave mid-game).

I think the mechanics of race enable people who don't really want to roleplay at all to write up a whitelist application and be granted very powerful powergaming tools. I think the lore of race provides something for someone to RP off of, but also can be used as a crutch when the majority of a character's actions/discussions/interactions are related to their race.

Where's the Dwarf? Do we expect him at the tavern with that accent drinking alcohol? If so, it might be time for dwarves to be played differently, because the sci-fi "Romulans are Mean"/"Vulcans are logical"/"Klingons are warlike" is a very specific, very tired kind of sci-fi that I don't particularly enjoy, and my suggestion is aimed towards a general reduction of THAT, as well as a reduction of the powergaming aspect.

[JKJudgeX]

oh wait yes i remember you you asked me to never reply to your posts after i made fun of you for comparing paperwork to rape

Aaaaaaaaaanyway we should probably let bygones be bygones and engage in the actual, intellectually stimulating conversation this thread should hopefully be slated to provide. (Honest.)

Lore regurgitation/reciting lore is a well-known Roleplaying crutch. People are tired of rum-swilling Scottish dwarves, and characters named after or stolen from book, comic, or movie characters.

I've had a particular interest in SS13's alien races for nearly two years (which is shameful. Nobody should spend that long nurturing an obscure interest on roleplaying aliens from a specific, little-known videogame.)

Over my time on Aurora, I've seen people roleplay aliens in a lot of ways. Some of them were good, some of them were shit. Contrary to what you're suggesting, I'd like to bring up that very little of what I've seen concerning the lore was objectively bad.

If anything, people ignore the lore a lot. Tajarans are supposed to be a race of conservative, somewhat repressed pre-wwii socialists, yet we've seen a lot of them act like sexually liberated hippie-revolutionists, trying to provoke furpiles and think they're the hottest thing for getting into a fight into security/whomever upon being called "cat".

That's a stereotype of the Tajaran player. A character who falls completely flat by following the lore to a tee while ignoring proper characterization... isn't. I have literally not seen one character fall flat because they weren't venturing far enough from the lore.

Now, characters who rely too much on popular tropes or Mary Sue-ish characteristics are pretty common. That's the biggest issue of immersion with aliens we've encountered (and species caretakers do their best to ensure this issue is curbed). But that's people that are ignoring the lore completely, not being constricted by it.

What would be some examples of "lore regurgitation" that you have seen? What are solutions to this problem you would propose, other than limiting the number of players for each race? (Because that doesn't make the races better, it just hides the bad.)

 

Again, you're obviously "welcome" to post on my topics by the rules of the forums though I've asked you not to, but I'm not going to engage you in my discussions. Maybe someone else will.

[Skull132]

You do realize this is not going to go anywhere if you're flat out ignoring points, valid points, in the argument on the basis of a personal grudge, aye? Separate the poster from the points, address the points, not the poster, hooyah? Hooyah.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

If you're not going to give one of my developers the time of day when they try to honestly engage with you with intelligent discussion then why is anyone else obligated to give you the time of day?

[Alberyk]

Ideally, if the races exist to satisfy an actual RP itch to play something other than human, that's cool, but they really could just be skins. The mechanical differences are okay if they weren't so "all or nothing"... and I wasn't even really refering to Unathi or Tajaran, though Tajarans are very much overplayed.

 

Then people complain about xenos being just reskinned humans, different game mechanics can also translate in rp opportunities as well.

 

I just prefer a more structured setting, where most people are more similar, and I don't feel like I need to read 19 books of lore in order to feel like an actual citizen of NT.

 

That is pretty much the direction that the loreteam is taking, if I am not wrong. No one really needs to know nothing besides the basic to rp without any issues, people can be also ignorant of other places and cultures icly.

 

Where's the Dwarf? Do we expect him at the tavern with that accent drinking alcohol? If so, it might be time for dwarves to be played differently, because the sci-fi "Romulans are Mean"/"Vulcans are logical"/"Klingons are warlike" is a very specific, very tired kind of sci-fi that I don't particularly enjoy, and my suggestion is aimed towards a general reduction of THAT, as well as a reduction of the powergaming aspect.

 

And the same happens with our fluff, aliens aren't hiveminds which will act in the same way, as the lore master said;

 

With Unathi specifically, after I seized them and put myself in charge of them I've worked them as best as I am able to avoid forcing unathi players into stereotypical archetypes. The lore of the lizards is meant to impact lizards just as human lore is meant to impact humans. They're just as diverse as humanity.

[Eliot Clef]

I can give you a pretty simple explanation for why IPCs are so popular: They're easy to dive right into, and extremely flexible. It's true that they also have some very powerful tricks/benefits, and also true that they're pretty vulnerable in other ways. The main thing though, I think, is that it's very easy to get into Synthetic play by starting with AI/Cyborg, which requires no whitelist.

Somebody who grows interested enough in synthetics from AI/Borgs will often then move on into developing their character further by obtaining a whitelist and giving them a body.

It's been a while since I've seen a hell of a lot of IPCs running around in all departments. There's usually a handful, but not a lot.

As for the overall thrust of the topic, ehn. I can't do anything here but harshly disagree with all points JKJudgeX has made. If we're going to have nonhumans and whitelists (which we clearly are), we shouldn't be installing hard or soft caps (particularly by categorically rejecting applications) to achieve arbitrary too-many-nonhuman quotas.

[JKJudgeX]

If you're not going to give one of my developers the time of day when they try to honestly engage with you with intelligent discussion then why is anyone else obligated to give you the time of day?

 

No one is obligated to give me the time of day. If you don't want to, roll on past or lock the topic. Making a topic shouldn't obligate me to reply to every single person in the thread, admin, mod, loremaster, or what have you.

Now, back to the topic at hand... I'm not being aggressive towards other races... if you've seen me in OOC there's a good chance you've seen me telling people off for making racist/rude comments against aliens that I don't even enjoy playing alongside, and in-game the only entities that my main character dislikes are the A.I. and borgs, and he's not even completely negative about that all the time. I was trying to approach this in a way that lets everyone know that "too many aliens" creates an atmosphere that SOME PLAYERS do not find as interesting as "some aliens"... and to further bring in the perspective of the importance of game balance vs. good RP, and how those things relate. I spend a lot of time playing SS13, and my current and usual favorite server is Aurora, but my experience on other servers (presently and in the past) has been that there's something more enjoyable about a more "grounded" server, for both game mechanics and RP. I have my preferences for how SS13 should be run that are based on my experiences playing the game and my general likes and dislikes about the sci-fi genre altogether, and I'm sure everyone has a set of similar preferences. I thought this was the place to make those preferences known through suggestions.

For example, I do not like the head whitelist. I like an A.I. whitelist, but I like race, A.I. and Borg whitelists, but I think that head whitelists cause for clunky round experiences half the time because of headless departments. I've mentioned this in OOC before and been "told" that a Research Director isn't important anyway, in the same round that the A.I. used its borgs to murderbone most of the people on the station, which the presence of a research director could have hindered greatly. Also, I play very late night pretty frequently, and it's common for there to be no Captain, no HoP, and no RD in the same round, despite there being 25+ players. For those reasons, I'd like to see at least the Research Director, and probably CMO come out of whitelist... but, I probably won't bother making that suggestion after this thread... at least not for a while (I'll wait for the playerbase to shift again - I've played here for about 2 years.)

That being said, it was not my intention to offend anyone with my suggestion or single anyone out. Maybe my suggestion came from a strange place because I did make the thread after playing a couple of rounds that were pretty heavy on the Vaurca, IPCs, and Tajarans. Seeing the numbers of whitelisted players above made me realize that it was probably a fluke to see 3 Vaurca characters in the same couple of rounds, and did remind me of the IPC tide of many months ago (which if I'm honest, pushed me away from the server because I grew tired of having to deal with them on the few antag rounds I got to play, and I didn't feel like having to learn every strength and weakness that they had... plus the "shells" were super hyper-retarded). From a lore perspective, IPCs, if they work the way they do with their mechanics, COMPLETELY OBVIATE the need for humans... and it feels bad to do heavy RP repeatedly in situations where you're thinking ... "one of the IPCs should have just done this, since they are better than me in every important way for the vast majority of tasks on this space station".

[JKJudgeX]

I can give you a pretty simple explanation for why IPCs are so popular: They're easy to dive right into, and extremely flexible. It's true that they also have some very powerful tricks/benefits, and also true that they're pretty vulnerable in other ways. The main thing though, I think, is that it's very easy to get into Synthetic play by starting with AI/Cyborg, which requires no whitelist.

Somebody who grows interested enough in synthetics from AI/Borgs will often then move on into developing their character further by obtaining a whitelist and giving them a body.

It's been a while since I've seen a hell of a lot of IPCs running around in all departments. There's usually a handful, but not a lot.

As for the overall thrust of the topic, ehn. I can't do anything here but harshly disagree with all points JKJudgeX has made. If we're going to have nonhumans and whitelists (which we clearly are), we shouldn't be installing hard or soft caps (particularly by categorically rejecting applications) to achieve arbitrary too-many-nonhuman quotas.

 

I just want to be clear that I wasn't proposing outright arbitrary denial of applications so much as slowing down the rate of acceptance, or perhaps closing whitelist applications for certain races for periods of time, to be re-opened as that particular race's population diminishes. Not so much a "nonhuman" quota, but a "not that many of that specific alien" quota, and in general requiring a lot more time played on the server before considering someone for a race, especially races that are potentially overpowered or often publicly reviled...

[Guest Menown]

I obviously was joking. In my time of playing Anwar I got beheaded by several lings over the course of a week, none of them knowing I was an IPC, so it didn't matter.

As for other points, I main a Tajara pretty hard. My gameplay advantages consist of me being ganked every round and having to wear a pair of bitchin' ass sandals (that will be complete with socks if we ever add that, because I'm a monster). Humans have always outweighed whatever races are on station anyway, either because people want to play humans or new people don't have whitelists, simple as that.

[CakeIsOssim]

As a player of mostly synthetics/IPCs, I can tell you why myself, and maybe a bunch of other people, like playing them. Me? I just fucking love robots. Lieutenant Commander Data, Ultron, Cylons... As for anyone else? As for the many, many other IPCs I've interacted with? I'm sure they could say that they love synthetics, too, or they really enjoy the feel of being a robot. The flexibility, the computer-y-ness.

When I applied for IPC, I didn't have a single mechanic in mind. I just wanted my wee little borg to be a big boy lawless robot. Honestly, I wasn't even fully aware of all the mechanics when I applied. It took me months to learn all of the weaknesses and strengths of the IPC, as the wiki page did not exist when I applied.

It just sounds like... like you're both trying to preemptively stop powergaming, and reduce Aurora to a stagnation of mostly humans, with a sudden influx of maybe ten aliens once the staff realize the alien population is too low. This doesn't sound very welcoming. And, I'd like to know, what is your definition of powergaming? Mine isn't getting clawed to death because I started wailing on a giant lizard with my fists. Mine is waiting for someone to be obviously typing a reply, and then hitting them with an ion cannon. This happened to me. And I wasn't happy.

[JKJudgeX]

As a player of mostly synthetics/IPCs, I can tell you why myself, and maybe a bunch of other people, like playing them. Me? I just fucking love robots. Lieutenant Commander Data, Ultron, Cylons... As for anyone else? As for the many, many other IPCs I've interacted with? I'm sure they could say that they love synthetics, too, or they really enjoy the feel of being a robot. The flexibility, the computer-y-ness.

When I applied for IPC, I didn't have a single mechanic in mind. I just wanted my wee little borg to be a big boy lawless robot. Honestly, I wasn't even fully aware of all the mechanics when I applied. It took me months to learn all of the weaknesses and strengths of the IPC, as the wiki page did not exist when I applied.

It just sounds like... like you're both trying to preemptively stop powergaming, and reduce Aurora to a stagnation of mostly humans, with a sudden influx of maybe ten aliens once the staff realize the alien population is too low. This doesn't sound very welcoming. And, I'd like to know, what is your definition of powergaming? Mine isn't getting clawed to death because I started wailing on a giant lizard with my fists. Mine is waiting for someone to be obviously typing a reply, and then hitting them with an ion cannon. This happened to me. And I wasn't happy.

 

I love robots, too. If uploading our minds is a thing that can happen in our lifetimes, I will be the first in line. I don't think there's an A.I. or Robot related big movie that I haven't seen a couple of times. I'm a software developer and I absolutely love real-life A.I. research and news. Robots are my jam, too.

I would even play one... if they were more balanced... I kinda wish I could just "say" that my current guy is an android, but receive absolutely no special bonuses for it... he still lives and dies like everyone else on the station... but that's not in the lore.

Video games and how they function and what they produce are my jam, too... I'm even writing one, very loosely based on SS13... in my spare time with an estimated completion date of "not gonna happen" even though I'm still trying (if you're interested I could probably show you sometime... it's online, browser-based, multiplayer, has logins, chat, real-time, animated spessmen, guns, eating, and chairs you can sit in, rotate, and drag... you can throw stuff, too... it's really just how I sharpen my coding skills)... but the reason I'm mentioning this is because I do have a pretty strong mind for balance and gameplay, and I have played SS13 for a long time now... I don't play an IPC or other alien race primarily because I don't think they are balanced, and I generally want to play the game in a balanced way.

To some people "balance" is unimportant. To me, it is especially so. I don't play on Goonstation because I feel like they don't care about balance one iota. I play here because in the discussions I've seen, the disparity between races has been brought up as a balance issue and attempts to address it have been made in earnest by the developers... (an old IPC related thread I was in was talking about reducing the brute damage mitigation of IPCs, and possibly making them vulnerable to a few other things... not sure how far that went, but the discussion was alive with admins who seemed to acknowledge that balance was important... so I take that as good faith).

So, until I feel like playing an IPC really confers NO advantage, I won't play one. Same reason I don't play a borg. Have you ever thought about the massive efficiency of a mining borg vs. a human miner? I don't play miner anymore because I played a mining borg once. It's ludicrously more simple and way overpowered, and no amount of being slaved to A.I. laws (which is actually cool and fun IMO) will even that out. "But, but, Ripleys tho!" ... nah, that's not available every round, takes a long time to get to, and still isn't as powerful at mining as it needs to be to catch up to the raw power of a mining borg. I don't like that, so I don't play the thing that's totally obsolete by comparison, and I don't play the thing that makes the other thing obsolete. That's just how I play.

So that's why I bother to even make these suggestions and put effort into it. I'm legitimately not trying to hurt any particular person's gaming experience, I'm trying to propose things that we can agree upon that put balance and fun and real meaningful, RP-enabling diversity at the forefront, and pushes back the weird "my character is super awesome not because of something I knew or did but just simply because I'm whitelisted to be it".

I was asked for examples of lore regurgitation... I'll give one but keep it anonymous, but this kind of thing happens all the time (and I hope the person who did this isn't reading or doesn't take offense, I'm not trying to be mean)...

My character got hungry while working a few days ago, and I look over to my IPC coworker and go "Oh, I've got to step out and get a bite."... the IPC then goes into talking about how he/she doesn't ever need to eat. This is lore regurgitation. I'm a scientist, you're a scientist. We both obviously know that you're not scarfing down a double cheeseburger anytime soon and we know why, because obviously we're coworkers and you working here isn't amazing to me. Now that didn't make me mad or spoil my "immershunz" too badly, but, that's an example, and when I posted this originally, it was partially because these kinds of "oh by the way I'm not a human and that's important right now (even though it really and truly is not)" kind of interactions were happening a lot for me. This aspect of it is WORLDS LESS IMPORTANT than the general gameplay balance of the races is to me, but I think it's important to critique each other's RP in order to improve from time to time, and this stuck out as a minor blemish (which I have plenty of my own and am receptive to criticism... I've updated character sheets and modified my interactions with people many times in the course of playing here, even when it made me salty to do so).

So there's that.

How about this modification of the idea: Enrollments for IPCs, Vaurca, and Borgs (yeah I'm sneaking in a Borg whitelist in my example ) are open from date to date, Enrollments for Tajarans and Unathi are open from date to date, and we choose those dates based on the population of those races? If you didn't get accepted within the date range, just hang on and in a month or two it will open back up and your existing application will be considered then or you can put in a new one? Just as one of a million possible ways to "Generally Reduce alternative races".

I'll go ahead and restate that I don't think there's a single thing mechanically wrong with Tajarans or Unathi. I don't care about claws. I am primarily concerned with ANY kind of outright immunities, big damage reductions, or quick incapacitation techniques, whether they come from your race OR role.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

The changeling loses if he's able to git gud. If you can't deal with having to be surprised by going after a shell and finding out you can't actually absorb them, maybe you should practice antagging some more. As Skull said, target variability, there are usually 1-5 IPCs onboard at all times, of a crew of 25-40, with that, most IPC-Humans have a strange skin tone, usually very pale or pinkish. Tajaran IPCs tend to be darker, etc.. It's not hard to do some RESEARCH into your target before killing them.

EDIT: The point of this game is also not about winning or losing, it's about making a story, so your point is even more moot that my explanation above this made made it.