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We Have An Existential Issue Within The Aurora Community (The Marlon Manifesto)


Guest Marlon Phoenix

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While your fairy tales are truly worthy of Brothers Grimm, they do not make for convincing arguments.

Actually what I said, instead of the lies is:

I think every single civilian whinning about civilian not being included in events is a massive manbaby and should realize that you trade responsibilities for involvement. Coincidentally each time people bitch about involvement they forget to mention that engineering and medical are also the two most involved departments. Almost like it goes according to how many players play each department you fucking idiots.

 

You come here to do a job. Your job is not an important job, you are not important.

This saves you from the headache of being chased around for not setting up the engine, not cloning people fast enough or not batoning the antag fast enough.

However you pay for it by, not being important.

Yes even cargo is non-important, everything they do is extra as is mining, scientists can still bring their research up to a near maximum even without you.


You don't get to have zero responsibilities during a normal round and also have all the involvement when something actually exciting happens, you can't have your cake and eat it.

You have a job, you do your job, sometimes you get pulled into shenanigans due to the nature of the situation, you not here to get into shenanigans.

This is called HRP, HRP drives on restrictions created by the rules, the rules say you should do your job and not search for shenanigans.

You CAN interact with an antag but you are NOT ENTITLED to an antag.

Antagonists are also players, they can chose who to interact with, how and how long.


If your character has not interacted with an antag in forever you should probably re-think how you play the game and why other players don't like you enough to ever interact with you.


Note:

I am not refuting any of the above points because I cannot, you are the community as am I and if you think there is an issue, then there is an issue.

However I also have my own opinions and my own thoughts on this that don't match yours, as do the 800+ unique pings that have visited this thread however not posted in it.

I think I do my best to allow civilians to enter my events and I have gotten the absolute minimum of complaints about not including people in my events. However everyone in here and everyone reading this IS the community and besides discussion there is not much we can do, outside of perhaps getting ol' Musky to build us a mind control device and make everyone a hivemind.

Edit : edited out "massive liar " due to being ad hominem, replaced it with "instead of the lies "

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Endless loop. This issue of antags roleplaying has been discussed many times before and it's always met with the same endless loop of not doing anything because another problem exists.

 

Never fix what isn't broken. Every time these discussions comes up, it's always playing the blame game and not realizing that there are genuine human beings behind each side of the discussion.


When someone tries to remind the ALL-POWERFUL VOCAL MINORITY GENERAL CONSENSUS that the situation is never as simple as they are quick to strawman something as, guess what the vocal minority does? They bitch and whine and complain about how absolutely oppressed they are within the community and act like the responses to their shenaniganry is equivalent to ideological genocide and being silenced.


I've been in this community for about four years now and I still haven't seen a single person come up with a Community Cure-All to fix the quality of roleplay on the server.


It will never happen. Ever since this server started, nobody on any other server has figured out how to deal with any other issue that happens in SS13 such as shitcurity, bad antags who waste the slot and other people's time, and whatever inane arguments are repeated over, and over, and over again.


Security will always be reinforced by newer, inexperienced players that don't know the first thing about ethically utilizing authority to do their job properly. People will cry about it, security players get pressured to leave the server because of the toxicity.


Antagonists will always be reinforced by newer, inexperienced players that don't know the first thing about reasonable escalation and properly managing to write a decent story while robusting people in fun and interesting ways. People will cry about it if antag players dare try to add consequence to other players that try to oppose them. Antag players get pressured to leave the server because of the toxicity.


Gee, maybe the problem with the community is that it's filled with equally toxic, selfish individuals who only look out for and think of #1.


Which includes almost everyone, and I speak from experience here, because I've met very few people on this server that I could honestly say I'd sacrifice my own time and enjoyment for just to ensure they were having fun. Most of those people that I once would've thought that I could've given my time and energy for, are gone. At the end of the day, people play this server for their own reasons. If you honestly think people don't OOCly look out for themselves in a game that rewards you for playing selfishly and punishes you for taking your time, then you're dealing with a delusion.


This game is cruel and unforgiving. Why should the community be any different?

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You come here to do a job. Your job is not an important job, you are not important.

your character comes here to do a job*

 

You don't get to have zero responsibilities during a normal round and also have all the involvement when something actually exciting happens, you can't have your cake and eat it.

You have a job, you do your job, sometimes you get pulled into shenanigans due to the nature of the situation, you not here to get into shenanigans.

This is called HRP, HRP drives on restrictions created by the rules, the rules say you should do your job and not search for shenanigans.

You CAN interact with an antag but you are NOT ENTITLED to an antag.

your character isn't here to get into shenanigans*


if you want to say "you shouldn't expect to play x role and expect to interact with the antag!" you need to explain to me why these roles exist.

we don't have antagonists as an afterthought - they're a very, very large amount of what our game is made up to be.

if we have a large number of people who are unable, by the nature of their position, to be involved with this very core aspect of the game, we need to understand why we expect people to just deal with the fact they're missing out on the most exciting and compelling part of the game.


i shouldn't be told "your enjoyment is secondary because you're not playing one of the harder roles". we don't trade fun and game skill like they're resources to be bartered. i come here to roleplay, so i'm going to want to pick a more roleplay-intensive job. i want to make a character that fits into a certain background, that represents a certain part of the lore, of me, and i want to enjoy the game the way it's meant to be enjoyed.

 

If your character has not interacted with an antag in forever you should probably re-think how you play the game and why other players don't like you enough to ever interact with you.

probably because my character isn't braindead and acts like a reasonable person does, thus is able to avoid 99% of antagonistic actions by just walking the other way. most of the civilian characters that end up getting involved in antagonist shit literally charge their way in with a hi-diddly-hi and an improvised weapon (or they're in a metaclique, and get singled out by their friends. i don't say that to be inflammatory, but it's hard to dispute this)



if we have roles which, in your eyes, shouldn't be getting involved with the games driving conflict, we need to fucking purge those roles, or change the conflict to the point that they can.

otherwise, we've got a shit-ton of dead weight options, for characters (READ: PLAYERS) who are just doomed to be ignored and sidelined, because you don't think they deserve that interaction on account of not having to set up the engine or treat patients.

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your character comes here to do a job*

YOU picked said job for YOUR character.

Why would you pick a job you don't want to do.

 

your character isn't here to get into shenanigans*

You are right on this one.

 

if you want to say "you shouldn't expect to play x role and expect to interact with the antag!" you need to explain to me why these roles exist.

Because it's your JOB to create LUXURIES for the crew. You are not required for anything and yes you should not be expected to interact with the antag because civilian is USELESS. An AFTERTHOUGHT that lags behind the rest of the station.

Security exists to specifically have the job of interacting with the antag and stopping him, that is their job. Sure security can fail or you happen to get a lucky hit in and stop him yourself, but it's not YOUR responsibility because you have NONE as a civilian.

 

we don't have antagonists as an afterthought - they're a very, very large amount of what our game is made up to be.

if we have a large number of people who are unable, by the nature of their position, to be involved with this very core aspect of the game, we need to understand why we expect people to just deal with the fact they're missing out on the most exciting and compelling part of the game.

Then don't pick a job that is based on being extranious and unimportant. Easy as that.

Again, you cannot have both the maximum amount of free-time for yourself and your character with zero responsibilities and also be required to be involved in everything on station.

The more responsibilities you have, the more likely you're going to be involved. That's how this entire game is designed.

 

i shouldn't be told "your enjoyment is secondary because you're not playing one of the harder roles". we don't trade fun and game skill like they're resources to be bartered. i come here to roleplay, so i'm going to want to pick a more roleplay-intensive job. i want to make a character that fits into a certain background, that represents a certain part of the lore, of me, and i want to enjoy the game the way it's meant to be enjoyed.

Then if you come here to roleplay, roleplay, I never said not to. But don't complain about the fact that your kind of roleplay is the calm and constantly mellow one because it's the one the MOST REMOVED from the one big feature of this game.

 

probably because my character isn't braindead and acts like a reasonable person does, thus is able to avoid 99% of antagonistic actions by just walking the other way. most of the civilian characters that end up getting involved in antagonist shit literally charge their way in with a hi-diddly-hi and an improvised weapon (or they're in a metaclique, and get singled out by their friends. i don't say that to be inflammatory, but it's hard to dispute this)

And what do you expect exactly?

You pick civilian for calm RP and having free time for yourself, you get calm RP and free time for yourself, then people turn around and complain that they get too much calm RP and it's not what they wanted while doing absolutely nothing to change it, just sitting back watching the rounds unfold infront of them and pouting.

Plus, we specifically have gamemodes which exist to include these un-important departments, cult and revolution.

 

if we have roles which, in your eyes, shouldn't be getting involved with the games driving conflict, we need to fucking purge those roles, or change the conflict to the point that they can.

otherwise, we've got a shit-ton of dead weight options, for characters (READ: PLAYERS) who are just doomed to be ignored and sidelined, because you don't think they deserve that interaction on account of not having to set up the engine or treat patients.

Yes, civilian is a dead-weight department, it always was. People enjoy playing that dead-weight department, I know quite a few people who play civilian JUST so they can stay out of the day-to-day bullshit and instead focus on private interaction.

Civilian is the break-room of Aurora departments, it's the relax lounge where people get to enjoy freedoms and relaxations. (sometimes antags insert themselves into it though)

Again, medical and engineering are the second and third department to be the most involved with antags respectively, because antagonist actions disturbe their jobs and the nature of their job forces them to deal with the antagonist to some degree.


So yes, let's remove the dead-weight roles. Cut out the Bartender Chef, Hydro, just put dispensers there. Put away the journo, librarian, chaplain people can print their own books. Get rid of cargo and the QM, hell nothing simpler than just ordering things and putting them on a shuttle.

None of them are important.


EDIT:

Last part is sarcasm I don't actually want to remove any of those roles. But people reading this have to admit that all those jobs are just a cherry on-top, not the meat of the cake.


Further while I use a lot of "You's" I never mean Ornias in particular, I'm adressing the unspoken "civilian"

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You pick civilian for calm RP and having free time for yourself, you get calm RP and free time for yourself, then people turn around and complain that they get too much calm RP and it's not what they wanted while doing absolutely nothing to change it, just sitting back watching the rounds unfold infront of them and pouting.

i don't pick civilian for calm RP. i pick civilian for exactly the same reason i pick any other role - to build a character.

the job is part of the character. not the other way round, in anything but mechanics.

 

Yes, civilian is a dead-weight department, it always was. People enjoy playing that dead-weight department, I know quite a few people who play civilian JUST so they can stay out of the day-to-day bullshit and instead focus on private interaction.

but they should not be doing that. if you're acting like everything's hunky dory while there's an antag on the loose, that's bad roleplay. if you're not freaked out about the fact your coworkers are dying, that's bad roleplay.


your whole position revolves around "well, fuck, they chose to play civilian, so they're just fucking crybabies". that's a horrible way of looking at it.

the departments are un-important from an IC perspective when it comes to dealing with antags. that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be involved with antagonists. slightly less? of course. but not removed.

we shouldn't be giving people an option which, by nature, excludes them from the game. you don't get light roleplay when there's a murderer on the loose. that's not fair to the antagonists, to the people who are taking the game seriously while you faff about asking out your cargo coworker standing over the corpse of a security officer.

 

And what do you expect exactly?

i expect antagonists to be given reasons to interact with civilians, as well as going out of their way to do it for their own accord.

i expect civilians to be held in the same regard as anyone else, in regards to their status as players.

i expect command staff to give options to these players to get involved, through realistic means - through asking them to distribute flyers, through coordinating protection efforts so civilians aren't left escorted, by making evacuation plans and dragging them, one way or another, into the fray, without breaking character.

i expect any role or job that cannot, by it's nature, coincide with these options, to be remedied (or removed). there is no advantage to having these roles if we refuse to cater to them.

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your whole position revolves around "well, fuck, they chose to play civilian, so they're just fucking crybabies". that's a horrible way of looking at it.

Because this is how it is! Don't pick an unimportant position if you want to get involved! It's not pretty but this is what the truth is!


I addressed a lot of the points between the cherrypicks, but the simple fact is that civilian is un-important.

And even /tg/ has roles that don't revolve around the antag, AT ALL.

Actually ALL their roles are tailored to do their own shit until they HAPPEN to run into an antag.

Just like us.

Wait not, just like EVERY SINGLE EXISTING SERVER OFF AND ON THE HUB.

Nobody is entitled to antag interaction outside of security, because it's their responsibility to deal with antags, security cannot ignore antags because is is their job to stop the antag.


Events can be tailored to civilian roles, it's hard to make an event that people want to take part in, other departments are included in, civilian are included in and that isn't really fucking boring.

Last time I tried such an event (And props to Xander he SERIOUSLY did his fucking best) was the cat refugee event, halfway through people started cryoing because they actually had to do their job and build shit, heal people and cook food.

All of the heads were doing their absolute best to include their entire departments, multiple security officers purposefuly let their fucking guard slip to the point where one Tajara was allowed to keep a gun which was later used against a CE and security officer.

People still complained about not being included and some people just purposefuly left because they had to do their job.


Because this is a community, people aren't going to interact with you more. This isn't communism, we don't distribute the fun equally, if you want more fun you have to work to get more fun.

Some jobs get more fun, some jobs get less fun that is how it is and will be, we can try to balance it and make jobs more relevant but I can't do that. Ask the developers to add more relevance to the civilian departments, as they say, Improve not Remove.


EDIT: Apologied, Doc not Xander but I think Xander was there too along with Aboshehab and Eve

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An argument here is that Cargo is supposed to trade antag action for doing their job... however not even that happens.


Security never asks for weapons. Last month and the month before when I was playing quartermaster, security had no weapon requests. There's one powerful weapon for every sec officer so security is never in need of any weapons. Even if it's MALF and the AI has a robot army, I have to order Ions on my own initiative. Security doesn't need materials from mining.


Medical never asks for chems or supplies. I've seen one chemist order spare acetone and carbon, but medical never orders medical supplies. They never need to since they have everything they need to treat someone. They have a lot of first aid kits and a shitton of vendors so it's not like they're ever going to run out. The chemist also occasionally asks for phoron, but that's it.


Science relies on mining to produce materials, but that's about it. Occasionally they'll order a protohuman to experiment on. Science will only order Kudzu if they're up for it.


Engineering doesn't order shit. They have everything they need to keep power running. They have a fuckton of materials too. The only thing that gets order is insulated gloves. I don't think I've ever seen an engineer ask for materials.


Service is about the only other department than science that relies on cargo, but that's a bit of a stretch. The chef will ask for meat, but everything else is produced on station. The bartender never really orders things from cargo since they have everything they need to make a drink, unless they're one person I know.


I've gone through 3 hour rounds where there have been 0 orders. Each department is fully stocked. There are never any shortages, except for meat, and even then that's trivial because junkfood from vendors.

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The clear option is to nerf the entire station so that they're forced to interact with one singular department.


Or just add superior stuff to cargo that allows the various departments (medical, for the sake of example) to skip steps and get power items. The more sane option rather than forcing them to interact, but rather to have really good incentive to do so.


Besides, what interaction for cargo went past this generalization anyway;


"I need a thing"

"We need your money"

"Okie"

"It'll arrive in like forty minutes"

"Thanks for nothing"

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

The clear option is to nerf the entire station so that they're forced to interact with one singular department.


Or just add superior stuff to cargo that allows the various departments (medical, for the sake of example) to skip steps and get power items. The more sane option rather than forcing them to interact, but rather to have really good incentive to do so.


Besides, what interaction for cargo went past this generalization anyway;


"I need a thing"

"We need your money"

"Okie"

"It'll arrive in like forty minutes"

"Thanks for nothing"

Stop, stop, stop! Youre arguing into circles about the symptoms of the problem when the best solution we have is what i described in the op. When they come to you, say yes!

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I think i've been drained with the will to play Aurorastation.


One of 3 things happens every round:


1. Antags interact exclusively with command/security. Nothing of roleplay substance is gained for Medical, Engineering, Cargo, or Service. Security and antags jerk eachother off in OOC saying what a great round it was.


2. Antags interact exclusively with their metabudies. Ninja kidnaps their friend and proceeds to ChairRP with them for 2 hours. Vampire sucks off their friends. Wizard gives


3. Antags don't bother to interact with anyone and just pursue objectives. Heist team shoots on sight, AI just starts blowing shit up because of some stupid fucking gimmick. Ninja cuts off everyone's arm. Traitor memes around with a .357.


This always happens every round:

That one character who's always the center of attention in literally every round somehow gets involved. They throw any reason and logic outside the window if it means them getting some action. This means either provoking the antags, helping the antags for no real reason, seeking out the antags despite it meaning obvious death. Them getting kidnapped consistantly for having some fucking rediculous backstory.


A lot of users tend to shittalk these people, complaints have spawned because of this, and many memes have been made. Honestly at this point, I understand these people as the only way to actually get involved in an antagonist round as non-sec and non-command is that you force yourself to get involved at the detriment of character development.

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It's all about antags. You think the issue is about command hoarding all the RP from antags while I think that's only a part of the problem. Command hoards antags because they crave for interaction that's usually next to impossible to get from antags otherwise. Players literally get command whitelists just to be more involved in roleplay so you're going to see a lot of situations where they exploit it.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

It's all about antags. You think the issue is about command hoarding all the RP from antags while I think that's only a part of the problem. Command hoards antags because they crave for interaction that's usually next to impossible to get from antags otherwise. Players literally get command whitelists just to be more involved in roleplay so you're going to see a lot of situations where they exploit it.

 

Then play command and get people involved and always try to say "yes!" To them when they ask to be involved or do things. Be part of my solution.

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It's all about antags. You think the issue is about command hoarding all the RP from antags while I think that's only a part of the problem. Command hoards antags because they crave for interaction that's usually next to impossible to get from antags otherwise. Players literally get command whitelists just to be more involved in roleplay so you're going to see a lot of situations where they exploit it.

 

Then play command and get people involved and always try to say "yes!" To them when they ask to be involved or do things. Be part of my solution.

 

Might make Marwani a HoP, then, however that means adding a few years to her age.

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Regarding antagonists and crew involvement:

Security exists to be a wall between antagonists and civilians. It's designed to do that, it makes sense in-universe, and it does it very well.


If you want to change that, you should get rid of the security department, so that every crewmember must rise to the challenge of the collective defense. Then, to compensate for the power difference between antagonists and crewmembers, you would want to either nerf antagonists or make it easier for crewmembers to arm and armor themselves in the event of danger. That way, everybody is liable to be included in the action.


Unless you're willing to do that (and I totally am), I don't understand any complaint about civilians not getting to experience as much antagonist interaction as security. The game mechanics are doing what they are designed to do.

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This thread has very little to do with antagonists and the interaction stemming from it.


Quoting ParadoxSpace to summarize the point of the topic that JB has written in full in the main OP:


"As someone who's partaken in like atleast two events as an event character, there's an awful tendency for command and Security to try to sequester events away from the general public and generally keep knowledge/communication to the crew at large at an absolute minimum. During the tajaran refugee ebent we got shoved into a tiny area of the construction level and were never allowed anywhere without Security's noses in our assholes."


Get it out of your head that this is about only antagonists. They are not the only thing to this server that makes it special. Remember what this server is advertised as on the hub. Heavy Roleplay. That means getting people involved to roleplay into the shoes of their character and getting some good experiences out of this server is very important.


The problem is command and security forcing people out of the general interaction even if the other departments have really good reason to be involved in any given situation. The problem is certain members of the community that take actions, whether they know it or not, that isolate people from the fun. It's cliquey behavior and it's not fun.


Just say yes. That's the only thing that needs to be done here. Involve people in your gimmicks and just say yes. Open up your comfort zones and allow people into your bubble.

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Antagonists are the primary prescribed drivers of roleplay in any round that includes them; whenever they are present, they are the "event" that security and command sequester away from the rest of the crew. So, pretty obvious that they're a foremost concern regarding the connection between the crew and the round's roleplay content.


And in that light, it bears repeating that antagonists (and disasters, danger, etc.) comprise most of the content that security and command keep from the rest of the crew because that's what security and command are tasked with doing: keep the crew away from the danger


Events are dangerous

Security's job is to protect non-security

Therefore, security's job is to keep non-security away from the events


Your plan to "just say yes" isn't going to work, because heavy roleplay pretty strictly demands saying "no" to an overwhelming majority of players' requests that would improve those players' interaction with the round. When a cargo technician asks the HoS, "Can I tag along on your team's manhunt, because I got a hold of this weapon through my department?" You can't "just say yes" because it's totally antithetical to your role.


Gimmicks aren't the interactions that players are most commonly excluded from. Antags are.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

Small steps have been made since the original posting of this. I see more dmall emergent communual events and spontaneous projects done by people that more or less get accepted. I also see that sometimes these splutter out without attendees if its organized without command involvement.

As a player ive tried direct action and whenever i see a small event (like a sermon) I try to grab people to attend but as i said in the OP command is best built to proliferate these things.

However ive also noticed, at least within my own timezone where i play or hop on to skim the roster, we generally have the same small rotation of names in command.

Our command team in my perspective seems to have actually shrunk in its diversity of characters. Ive seen only the same two or three captains be playing in nearly every round. I am concerned about this and i believe we should gather data on this to see if this trend is reflected across the board, or if its just the result of my play time syncing up with these mentioned command players.

 

Edited by Marlon Phoenix
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I do my best as HOS/Captain to combat this kind of mindset from the ISD/Command. I've held on three different canon rounds, laser tag events, and even during an extended round, went out of my way to permit crew to buy guns from a merchant given they filed a permit through me personally first. It all went well, as I expected it to. Sadly I'm only one person. I would like the rest of the Command team to try and approach the lack of morale in rounds as hard as they do code and regulations. Give your crew some fun. Let them relax more. I know recently Vira Bolwhateverherlastname is as Captain hosted a pool party as well. We all need to chip in a bit and keep morale icly at a top. And if you're having an issue finding a way to icly justify why? Profits increase with productivity. Let your crew have a bit of fun, and I promise you, when you ask them to be productive, you'll see it double, if not more. 

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