Post by frances on Apr 29, 2014 17:07:09 GMT
First of all, you say you don't feel equal. To what? To whom? Where do you stand on this, are you against passive RP? Against bad RP? It feels to me like you're throwing in a bunch of issues into this post, but without any cohesion. If there's an outlying message to this, I think it's not explained clearly, and I'd like to see you expand on it.
Secondly, to address the (imo) biggest issue you bring up here: chair RP, and its place among active RP. Chair RP doesn't really bother me - it's simply a thing that is, the same way that we're going to have wizards, or traitors running around. I've never really chair RP being an obstacle. In the worst case, the passive RPers are just going to get a bit mad at you for breaking apart their scenes with (valid) requests, which imo is all on them since you're in the right, even ICly (people are on the clock, after all.) But it rarely escalates to more than that - in general, it is active roleplay, like nuke rounds and axe-wielding puppy murderers, that come break the passive RP apart, not the other way around. And that's why some rounds are less suitable than others for planned chair RP.
Which brings on what I think is the main problem you highlight in your post: while passive RP is somewhat feasible in active rounds (say, if your character is friends with another and a nuke rounds happen, you can try to escape the nuke with them), people that are not part of any passive RP events during extended rounds can have a very boring time. I will confess that on more than one occasion, I've been sitting alone in my department in the late hours of the night, with half of the server pop crowded around some drama happening in the brig, where my character has no place being. And while that does suck, these represent a minority of my rounds, and I think it's okay that situations like that can be happening. Here's why:
SS13 is a multiplayer game. Unlike in singleplayer games, gameplay is created on-the-fly. Since content is based on interactions between players, it's unpredictable, and often unreliable. Most of us who have played other multiplayer games are familiar with the act of finding that one good server for the night among a troupe of terrible ones, or logging in to hit that "peak time" of a few hours where all the good players are on, or your favorite world reaches capacity and is packed with action. If you play MMOs, or squad-based FPSes, you might've gone from group to group until you find that one party or squad who you're going to have fun with for a few rounds or dungeon runs. But besides that, the games you're playing aren't all flowers and sunshine.
The truth is, multiplayer gaming has its ups and down. Far more than singleplayer, where a game will generally be good or bad, mainly because it's so consistent. And the reason why people are willing to sit through these "bad" spots, these downtimes and nights of low server pop or bad space-RP is because the good times make it oh-so-worth it.
So, no, I wouldn't change anything to our server, or to SS13 in general, to address this issue. I do wish that every round could be a great one, but to assume such a thing would be feasible is completely preposterous. Now, if you're not satisfied with what the server is offering you, maybe you should ask yourself what you're trying to get from it, rather than what you can change about it. And no, this isn't a case of "it's not wrong for me so it shouldn't be wrong for you" - quite simply, I don't think there is much you can change to other players' behavior. And it is so much easier to alter your own.
You don't like nuke rounds? That's fine. But they won't stop happening, because other people on the server want them. And if they really are something you can't sit through, then you can stand them out, or spectate them. But they're not a reason to abandon the server, because there's other rounds you do like that are coming up. Don't like extended? Most of the rounds earlier in the night (EST) tend to be more active. Stuck playing on an extended, and there's only five people on and they're doing their own thing together? That's kind of shitty, but again, chances are, if they didn't have their own RP, then nothing would be going on. And in general, I feel like - especially in slow rounds - people are fairly welcoming of others in their RP, /especially/ if they're regulars, are friendly, and express themselves well. An example that comes to mind with that was a round, a week or so ago, where only 5-6 people were left after a server reset - Viking and Nebula joined as space wizards, and ran some mini-event. It was originally only a security (and later engineering) matter, but since we spent our time running around the ship, everyone that was on slowly joined, until we had our little active group of the entire server's pop, with no one left out.
So, I really don't think things are that bad on Aurora right now. As you haven't been more specific in your post, I can't really say much more than that at the moment; give examples, or try to describe clearly how you're feeling as a player personally towards this rather than in a general sense, and I think people will be able to help you far more with this.
Oh, and two final notes. Firstly, I'm not too sure what you're trying to address with your paragraph on standards of hiring. Trolls/griefers? Yeah, we're pretty much always gonna be a bit of those. While we do deal with them ICly (until they get banned away, anyway), most people simply choose to ignore them in their canons - NT as a company is pretty patchy as a whole, anyhow, and I haven't seen many pay too much attention to a lot of the inconsistencies that exist at the moment, simply because they're not important for their RP. And secondly, about cross-department interaction: I think it's partly a design problem, and partly a personal one. There are some mechanics that could be improved to favorize department interaction, especially in ways that let departments work together, /without/ gimping them when one's understaffed or not present at all. But, generally, I think that if you're starved for cross-department stuff, it's likely because you're not looking, not because everyone is ignoring you. There are some things newbies need to be warned about (but personally, if I see a non-engineer trying to break in another department to get supplies, I'm gonna get security involved for them not going through the proper channels, and then it's gonna create some more work for someone else), but when I see people use the snack machines instead of the kitchen, it's usually because there's no chef around to make food, not because everyone is ignoring them.
Secondly, to address the (imo) biggest issue you bring up here: chair RP, and its place among active RP. Chair RP doesn't really bother me - it's simply a thing that is, the same way that we're going to have wizards, or traitors running around. I've never really chair RP being an obstacle. In the worst case, the passive RPers are just going to get a bit mad at you for breaking apart their scenes with (valid) requests, which imo is all on them since you're in the right, even ICly (people are on the clock, after all.) But it rarely escalates to more than that - in general, it is active roleplay, like nuke rounds and axe-wielding puppy murderers, that come break the passive RP apart, not the other way around. And that's why some rounds are less suitable than others for planned chair RP.
Which brings on what I think is the main problem you highlight in your post: while passive RP is somewhat feasible in active rounds (say, if your character is friends with another and a nuke rounds happen, you can try to escape the nuke with them), people that are not part of any passive RP events during extended rounds can have a very boring time. I will confess that on more than one occasion, I've been sitting alone in my department in the late hours of the night, with half of the server pop crowded around some drama happening in the brig, where my character has no place being. And while that does suck, these represent a minority of my rounds, and I think it's okay that situations like that can be happening. Here's why:
SS13 is a multiplayer game. Unlike in singleplayer games, gameplay is created on-the-fly. Since content is based on interactions between players, it's unpredictable, and often unreliable. Most of us who have played other multiplayer games are familiar with the act of finding that one good server for the night among a troupe of terrible ones, or logging in to hit that "peak time" of a few hours where all the good players are on, or your favorite world reaches capacity and is packed with action. If you play MMOs, or squad-based FPSes, you might've gone from group to group until you find that one party or squad who you're going to have fun with for a few rounds or dungeon runs. But besides that, the games you're playing aren't all flowers and sunshine.
The truth is, multiplayer gaming has its ups and down. Far more than singleplayer, where a game will generally be good or bad, mainly because it's so consistent. And the reason why people are willing to sit through these "bad" spots, these downtimes and nights of low server pop or bad space-RP is because the good times make it oh-so-worth it.
So, no, I wouldn't change anything to our server, or to SS13 in general, to address this issue. I do wish that every round could be a great one, but to assume such a thing would be feasible is completely preposterous. Now, if you're not satisfied with what the server is offering you, maybe you should ask yourself what you're trying to get from it, rather than what you can change about it. And no, this isn't a case of "it's not wrong for me so it shouldn't be wrong for you" - quite simply, I don't think there is much you can change to other players' behavior. And it is so much easier to alter your own.
You don't like nuke rounds? That's fine. But they won't stop happening, because other people on the server want them. And if they really are something you can't sit through, then you can stand them out, or spectate them. But they're not a reason to abandon the server, because there's other rounds you do like that are coming up. Don't like extended? Most of the rounds earlier in the night (EST) tend to be more active. Stuck playing on an extended, and there's only five people on and they're doing their own thing together? That's kind of shitty, but again, chances are, if they didn't have their own RP, then nothing would be going on. And in general, I feel like - especially in slow rounds - people are fairly welcoming of others in their RP, /especially/ if they're regulars, are friendly, and express themselves well. An example that comes to mind with that was a round, a week or so ago, where only 5-6 people were left after a server reset - Viking and Nebula joined as space wizards, and ran some mini-event. It was originally only a security (and later engineering) matter, but since we spent our time running around the ship, everyone that was on slowly joined, until we had our little active group of the entire server's pop, with no one left out.
So, I really don't think things are that bad on Aurora right now. As you haven't been more specific in your post, I can't really say much more than that at the moment; give examples, or try to describe clearly how you're feeling as a player personally towards this rather than in a general sense, and I think people will be able to help you far more with this.
Oh, and two final notes. Firstly, I'm not too sure what you're trying to address with your paragraph on standards of hiring. Trolls/griefers? Yeah, we're pretty much always gonna be a bit of those. While we do deal with them ICly (until they get banned away, anyway), most people simply choose to ignore them in their canons - NT as a company is pretty patchy as a whole, anyhow, and I haven't seen many pay too much attention to a lot of the inconsistencies that exist at the moment, simply because they're not important for their RP. And secondly, about cross-department interaction: I think it's partly a design problem, and partly a personal one. There are some mechanics that could be improved to favorize department interaction, especially in ways that let departments work together, /without/ gimping them when one's understaffed or not present at all. But, generally, I think that if you're starved for cross-department stuff, it's likely because you're not looking, not because everyone is ignoring you. There are some things newbies need to be warned about (but personally, if I see a non-engineer trying to break in another department to get supplies, I'm gonna get security involved for them not going through the proper channels, and then it's gonna create some more work for someone else), but when I see people use the snack machines instead of the kitchen, it's usually because there's no chef around to make food, not because everyone is ignoring them.
