Shells Being Restricted To Human Shells Only

Hello,

The introduction of shells was a brief one in Aurora's far past, and it was lost in our first big baymerge. They've now been reintroduced, and a lot of the old issues with their playstyle have resurfaced. Originally people would spawn as chimeras, with limbs from every race. I worked it in that shells can only mimic a single race in their parts.

The goal of shells was to have synthetics that were, for various reasons, mimicking organic life. They could mimic any of our playable races.

Unfortunately this ability was immediately used by a notable number of IPC whitelisted players to bypass xeno whitelists. These players would play as a xeno shell and pretend to be that race, even in their backstory, and subvert the lore for that species. These players were not acting in good faith and their behavior has unfortunately made it very difficult to defend them.

Combined with this, the species lore devs for Skrell (Loow), Tajara (Mofo), and Vaurca (LordFowl), were uncomfortable with the idea of shells mimicking their races for various reasons that made it difficult to justify a shell of those species. A coalition shortly formed wanting to restrict shells to human only.

As the overseer of Unathi I didn't want this to pass, because Unathi's religious and personal views would lend them to be uniquely horrified in interacting with unathi shells, but the only options that would satisfy both parties would mean making the whitelist process incredibly complicated for applicants, overseeing lore developers, and administration.

Rather than make things incredibly complex, or overrule the majority of my lore developers and members of administration, we've decided to restrict shells to human chassis only.

Xeno shells exist, but they are not something you can spawn as on the station.

This policy may be amended in the future, if and when we are able to properly handle the question of bypassing whitelists.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Marlon Phoenix

A patch will be ran over the next 7 days to enact the change.

Dissapointing, I would have rather seen some warnings and whitelist strips gone out. Shells are neat and i think they can be made a great addition to aurora.

Yeah, if people where abusing the shit, they should of got a kick in the ass. Maybe just have it set so you can only play that type of shell if you have a Whitelist for that species (mentioned in Discord.)

Dissapointing, I would have rather seen some warnings and whitelist strips gone out. Shells are neat and i think they can be made a great addition to aurora.

 

This. Hopeful for a re-evaluation down the line. Thanks for the heads-up.

This is behind a whitelist. I really think it would be better to see some punitive action for these people, what was it? Easy to get, easy to lose? I like that policy more than restricting it around the Community. These people were whitelisted for IPC, if they aren't playing an IPC as allowed, they shouldn't be allowed to play an IPC.

To echo the other opinions, I don't see why we can't slam shells behind a double-whitelist of IPC+Xeno (dubious usefulness, they're not supposed to have much to do with xeno's anyway) or to more simply just punish those who're using them for mimicry, since shoddy backstories is a whitelist-strippable offence.

I am saddened by the loss of potential.

i'm not.

Though admittedly, 'Bob', the tajaran chemist was a hilarious prospect for about 2 rounds that I saw them.

To echo the other opinions, I don't see why we can't slam shells behind a double-whitelist of IPC+Xeno (dubious usefulness, they're not supposed to have much to do with xeno's anyway) or to more simply just punish those who're using them for mimicry, since shoddy backstories is a whitelist-strippable offence.

I am saddened by the loss of potential.

 

This was likely brought up and discussed (And I recall it being brought up during the previous iteration of shells). I'm fairly certain if it was that easy to set up a double whitelist system, it would have been done already.

This was likely brought up and discussed (And I recall it being brought up during the previous iteration of shells). I'm fairly certain if it was that easy to set up a double whitelist system, it would have been done already.

Yes, I expect punishing by backstory (as we do for all racial whitelists?) would be easier.

There was a large amount of discussion, and there was a general consensus in the active loremembers on this, more-so than Jackboot mentioned here. One other thing is I could not think of any reasonable way that a synthetic would either achieve a xeno-shell form, or even want one in the first place. Considering every single Shell that was non-human was an absolute meme (And most of the human ones, admittedly) and I'm trying to eliminate the view of IPC's as a meme species, I'm not going to accept this. So I don't foresee myself reviewing this decision in any foreseeable future.

Xeno shells exist...

I could not think of any reasonable way that a synthetic would either achieve a xeno-shell form, or even want one in the first place.

Can we reconcile these statements first? I'm especially interested in what 'reasonable' is being defined as in the second quote. Isn't it a creative decision that the creator of a platform would make, or that a platform with whatever motivation to makes for itself? Aren't these the kinds of things we want to examine in an app or review on a case basis, instead of writing it all off as 'a meme?'

I don't want to turn this into another discussion thread necessarily, but I still feel as though changes to lore or the mechanics won't deter or get at the people who make the species 'a meme species.' Player behavior doesn't typically change through retcons, from what I've observed. Oversight is what I believe would be more effective, even if it does add up to more hands-on work than a policy change.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Guest

Xeno shells exist...

I could not think of any reasonable way that a synthetic would either achieve a xeno-shell form, or even want one in the first place.

Can we reconcile these statements first? I'm especially interested in what 'reasonable' is being defined as in the second quote. Isn't it a creative decision that the creator of a platform would make, or that a platform with whatever motivation to makes for itself? Aren't these the kinds of things we want to examine in an app or review on a case basis, instead of writing it all off as 'a meme?'

 

I'm inclined to agree with Synnono here. While player misconduct is clearly an issue that lead to this decision being made, I'm also interested in what exactly "Reasonable" means when Muncorn makes these kind of statements. The outward appearance of a platform would, at least in my mind, an aesthetic choice made by the owner/builder of the platform in question. I suspect Muncorn has different ideas about this and would like to know how exactly the lore team wants to develop this going forward.

Considering every single Shell that was non-human was an absolute meme (And most of the human ones, admittedly) and I'm trying to eliminate the view of IPC's as a meme species, I'm not going to accept this. So I don't foresee myself reviewing this decision in any foreseeable future.

 

I'm not sure how you can say that and believe it.

Seems a little odd to nuke Xeno shells from orbit instead of dealing with it in a case by case basis. Personally so far I've only seen two Xeno shells: a blue Tajara chemist and a slightly more orange Vaurca. Where is the mass Xeno shell IPC 'meme' that has supposedly cropped up?

Anyway, why not just add some code that restricts shells to whatever the user's whitelists are? Or is that the plan in the long run?

I was there when shells were a thing. And oh boy, that was a fun ride. And by "every single Shell

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that was non-human[/hr] was an absolute meme" I mean that every single Shell was an absolute meme. Of course, there were some rare exceptions, but almost all people were either abusing the whitelist to play xenos or for the mechanical benefits. That means, both of these groups were just looking and acting like non-IPC's. Your normal, stereotypical, usual shell looked like a cat/human, acted like one, talked like one, and had a normal backstory that just had a deadly accident in it. Not very creative. (Anyone who remembers Katelyn Mcmullen, huh. Or the flirty engineer cat-robot who fell in love with a normal-cat, and could retconn/erase the whole robot thing because it wasn't acting like a robot at all.)

What mechanical, in-game benefits you're talking about you doggie, you might ask. Well, back on old-code, shells were indistinguishable from organics. And you couldn't be taser'd or flashed, and maybe other stuff I no longer remember. That means, you could be a little surprise to some less trigger-happy nukeops or security officers. And that's also why IPC/Shell tags were coded in, and why people were refusing to wear them (let me add, these were brilliant and unique to our server, plz add back).

But let's just stick to the 'easy to gain, easy to lose' whitelist theme, you might say. Well, okay. But I say, it's not really worth it, I guess? Don't forget about adding clowns and spawn permissions for everyone. These will be easy to lose and totally not abusable, right?

But I'm also with Muncorn on the whole IPC thing. All races were always regulated and had their own rules, differences, quirks and unique aspects like language, traditions and play styles. While IPC were just 'do whatever' which I hated. This resulted in there being few robot'ish and emotionless IPC's, and many and tons of IPC's that mimicked and acted like normal organics.

So whatever.

Also:

(...) Personally so far I've only seen two Xeno shells: a blue Tajara chemist and a slightly more orange Vaurca. Where is the mass Xeno shell IPC 'meme' that has supposedly cropped up? (...)

That's probably because they're broken as hell. At least, that's what an Admin told me when I ahelped about shells in-game. A quick "don't" was the first reply I got.

The only benefit that was achieved from the Shell code was the fact we could Hot Rod customize IPCs with different paints while in-game and even reapply old synthflesh to shells that were damaged enough. It was pretty much like Top Gear. Or Pimp my Ride. The latter appealed to me better because of the wonderful Xzibit.

Unfortunately it also had its other effects, as listed above by Dreamix. hi doggy good to see you again

I'd be fine with the "thematic as intended human shells" still sticking around. Really not comfortable with the others being incredibly commonplace as displayed on station. The less they are available on station the better for immersion. This isn't to say I don't want them all, but xeno Shells appearing just for the sake of it as it stands per the sequence of events, just makes no sense. We can afford to wait awhile before bringing them to bout. They were reintroduced too fast.

But let's just stick to the 'easy to gain, easy to lose' whitelist theme, you might say. Well, okay. But I say, it's not really worth it, I guess? Don't forget about adding clowns and spawn permissions for everyone. These will be easy to lose and totally not abusable, right?

 

Not a fair example, IPCs are a whitelist. You aren't allowed to apply for Clowns or Spawn permissions, and that's for a reason. Though, I do agree, if it's as wide-spread as said, it probably isn't worth it. So, common ground there.

I'm fine with xeno-IPC's being removed, but I think that at least adding the synth-flesh prosthetics back would improve so much. For some reason, they were removed when xeno-IPC's were removed, only leaving behind 'Human Synthflesh' in the robotics constructor. I'd definitely like the xeno synthflesh back.

My issue is instead of punishing the players that were abusing it you outright removed it.

IPCs should be a hard to get race, easy to lose.

Now certain races it wouldn't make sense for them to mimic from a lore perspective why would an IPC want to be a Tajaran? I mean as an IPC their rights are nill, as a Tajaran they're literally one step ahead. Where as mimicking a human to unsuspecting people would put them a lot further ahead.

I think I'd like to see xeno-shells added back, but restricted to whitelists that people already have.

So for an example, you could have a lizard IPC shell, but that player requires both whitelists.

I feel shells could bring further synthetic conflict, personally, as some species will see a shell mimicking them as an abomination and show true hatred towards it, rather than the semi-accepted hugbox that we currently have in regards to synthetics.