Tornado1555

Hello. It's been 9 months since I last played on Paradise. I played quite often for a time, and eventually left for a variety of different reasons. Over the last week or so, I've greatly wanted to jump back onto the same server, which has an atmosphere that others lack; each time resorting to passively spectating in the background, and sadly not regretting doing so, based on what happens. Back on topic though, regarding the few people saying (mostly in ghostchat, of course) that the server, or even the game, had run out of freshness or its zest, and was on an inevitable decline, I still even today would disagree with them. The very unique enjoyment that one can get from playing this game still existed while I first played, and probably is still there for the open minded players that are just joining. I felt it multiple times myself the last active times I played, one of which was when one of the characters of Counterfeitguise (who was even at the time deserving of Mentor status) promoted my character early-game to Quartermaster, which funnily enough was for me something completely new. Why that might be the case, I think, is that during my time in 2015 playing this game, I had a habit of going out of my way to avoid "learning too much", like how to 'ez' break onto the bridge as a Journalist, or how to perform advanced medical experiments using only a blowtorch, a shard of glass, one of Walter Auman's administrative reports, and Ian's snout. I didn't like the idea of being a Mary Sue, and so the effect of ignoring hints or even free advice kept the game much fresher for me that it likely would have been otherwise (and despite quite a bit of time played, I never held a permanent in-game rank higher than that of Cargo Tech!), though it kept my presence as a player in-game and on the forums very small. It's because of all this, and my myth that I have a decent idea of how my own game's limitations and balances (this being a very minor WWII realism modification) can be set out, that I think I might have a unique perspective as "perpetual noob 2015" of SS13's Paradise. I think that because I possess very little in the way of metaknowledge, that I might represent alot of potential non-toolboxing new players that come and go as time goes on, for one reason or another. So, barring the fact that I consider myself still financially bankrupt, and cannot reward the diligence and skill of the server's Administrative staff and the Developers and Coders that make this server as interesting as it is, I instead hope to properly represent a point of view from the new-spessmen's perspective of how the server is going. -First off, I think it's wise for me to point out the interest of the community. Just eying the forums here and there, I can tell that the landed interest of the regular players in seeing Paradise continue in the right direction, is probably almost never seen in most other gaming (even Triple-A) franchises. To have a game developed with incredibly little money and be worth far more to its audience in the long run than games being sold for 100 USD is a testament to the skill of the Admin-Dev team, both in the SS13 community in general, and particularly here. In a period today of relative indifference, the passion given by everyone working here in their spare time is not any small thing. That said, being as Paradise represents a very large portion of the SS13 community overall, even I can see that we really have to take care which direction the server is set for, and many here (myself included) wish for Paradise to draw in more players and increase the game's popularity. With that in mind, many popular games and products streamline themselves to get there, and not everyone can play SS13 the way we might want it. I'd actually think it's a niche genre that will only be truly popular 15-30 years from now, under the right conditions. I think that a good motion to take would be aiming for the "right" new players, rather than new players in general. Giving everyone a chance is great, but I got brutally and instantly murdered a couple of times early, and felt perfectly fine for it, as I made poor decisions and got sucked out into space. To me, it happens, and should! -That does bring me to my second point though, and a popular point overall. SS13 was obviously designed around space! When I arrived, glitchiness of ZAS in mind, it did feel like we were actually in space, with decompressions and the flooding of poisoned air into a room giving an appropriate atmosphere of panic and confusion in a crisis. We all know LINDA has slowed the rate of atmospheric change to an almost inconsequential point. Yet it should be pointed out the internal mechanics advances made by the new system, and also the overall difficulties in making changes to the atmospherics systems. There are times in my own mod where I want to bring something to new heights, but the game's limitations hurt these chances. I put off some of the changes that I wish to make, until a new opportunity opens up. So, I could say that LINDA perhaps temporarily reduced the space atmosphere which I was fond of (I first died in the Library due to a catastrophic decomp), but LINDA's implementation also fixed alot of problems and opened up new opportunities, and I think is at the very least a good interim system. Any true problems with the server I think, lie elsewhere. -I remember when I "audaciously" set the Janitor job to low from none on the occupation preferences. Anxious to advance in a place with alternating rounds of utter destruction and relative calm with my character in one piece, and trying not to fail miserably at the job while doing so, I proceeded to forget I had both solid and holographic wet floor signs, later sending 2 security members and probably half the command staff into the opposite wall as they turned a corner on the way to medbay. This funny and properly embarrassing incident was early on when I was playing, and it is significant to me because later last year I started noticing masses of cleanbots. Leaving no mess as they went perfectly about their business, I realized that the Janitor's only remaining jobs were to scrub out the cook's oven and replace the occasional light fixture. I think this server's main problem, besides the community issue, ironically is the over-automation. We've seen it with engineering and medical particularly. In a server with full populations nearing and exceeding 100 people, we're cutting the amount of interesting mechanics and tasks to enhance the experience and the roleplaying opportunities available! It breeds troublemakers, especially when, as someone pointed out (I think it was the Admin tso or the Regular SpaceTimeNow, both among those making some very good points), progressing to unlock new roles is too easy. This causes a feedback and makes departments that still have a point worse; usually just as the jobless and toolbox-armed greytide rolls in. I can't imagine what damage that even I would do (and get away with) if I decided to be the Cap'n one game. -This all though leads to the final penultimate problem. Machofish pointed out one side of it earlier. Increasing action can lead to more powergaming, and yet just increasing RP can lead to less action and more "staged edginess" that one might see on other servers. I do not think that this is a problem with the goal of the server: In promising and delivering action and RP together, Paradise has actually set out to do alot, and often is right there at the top and yet still keeps the quality interest from the regulars that it still has today... and I think that the overall server has done very well. Still, I couldn't agree more with Earthdivine regarding the main problem ironically being the general community. I think that the solution does not start with any one balanced item or any change in how the air flows, or even adding or removing sweeping changes at once just to experiment. Instead, I think that the solution almost entirely is reliant on future policy regarding how the general community standards are to be drawn up and enforced. It is completely out of my league to express anything regarding this solution, because as an utter noob and a long time gone one at that, I couldn't know a hoot of the difficulties and risks associated with changing rules or guidelines for Paradise. I can say though, based on experience and observing the rounds, that a certain growing number of people will tend to know alot about the game mechanics, but very little about decent optional roleplaying- or even decency itself. They might even have skimmed the rules in most cases, but still they often care little whether someone else enjoys the round or not. This robotic tendency bleeds off to other players as the general quality naturally declines, particularly as the server population grows. I think the Admin fluff12 pointed out that general mood spreading around, and it even getting to him. I agree with him that it is the difficulty of the game that one of the problems, but I also think that the quality of the community's standards overall and their enforcement is what makes the key difference. -So, in the end, I really think that the key to the whole debacle lies with the very same Admin-Dev team that made this server so important to begin with, and while that probably seems like a cop-out of responsibility on my part, and just looking at it from a numerical perspective, there is little that the regulars on this forum can do individually, unless they made campaigning for community standards their entire life. As for the general population of players, the saying that the majority is not always right is correct especially here, and the majority of players playing SS13 and seeing Paradise would rather this server be steered in a PvP low-RP direction. THEREFORE, in my opinion, the encouragement, the incentive, and the backbone for the redevelopment of Paradise's community and the great crop that are its main regulars and willing newer players must to be helped along by strengthening the framework that started everything off to begin with. The admins, posting often about how they wish things were different, seem deprived of power in their own community! I think that just like Twinmold used JFK's quote in regards to the player's standards here,"...and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...", I think that the difficult but the most responsible thing to do is not just advocate more standards between us general players, but to allow the staff running the show to feel that they have proper and even overriding control over the game in the interests of its own development. Even if it hurts popularity, I would rather Paradise be an innovative and excellent M-RP server of 30-50 players, than the 100 players with the only typical outgoing product being a salty ghostchat. I think that it's better in the long run, too, if we're really going to show the genre off the right way. To shell out my own family a moment, my old man is a bit of a rolemodel for me. He, even if unpopular at the time, would say the hard things and berate corruption even in popular public figures, if he researched it. Though it did very well, his work in the regional and local levels didn't manage to break through at the time, but yet he was proven quite correct over the last few years, and is making progress now after being steadfast. He always referenced to me the adapted saying that, 'Strong and decisive decisions, even if they end up being the wrong ones, are better than weak decisions hesitantly made.' I think that this funnily enough could be applied here for Paradise's situation now. You all did it well before; the people here did so well as a matter of fact that it made a certain young and picky WWII realism armchair corporal brat, ended up enjoying a multiplayer online RPG set in a dystopian future with a robotic sphere named Beepsky, in spess. And I still do! I'd say that takes some skill. [i probably rashly posted a new topic in Suggestions. I'm perfectly happy merging or deleting this topic if it's a waste of space in the end.]

Unathi Barbed Claws and X'iminez Cricket wielding four Bee Grenades. Why does this sound like a very scary idea?

I see. I really think that rev rounds could be made to be very fun, I just haven't seen many ideas about how to make them better. Which explains my likely horrible suggestion. If nothing else, it might get the ball rolling and perhaps rev rounds wont need to be replaced afterall.

Definitely there needs to be some distinction between "alive" and "dead" cyborgs. Smoking would probably be preferable to the shorting out effect, because then a damaged cyborg would be a massive liability around a plasma leak. Still, smoking chassis would probably be a pain to sprite. And regarding your idea @davidchan , recycling damaged parts sounds like a very good idea... although it would have to be at a really low effectiveness, because if not, an occasional mining shift would be rendered quite worse off in terms of necessity. But having something to recycle parts (like the disposal does in cargobay) would work.

Perhaps, but revolution round currently are more akin to a rapidly dwindling security and command crew fighting an ever increasing semi-organized and slowly arming infantry regiment. The confusion is currently pretty much one-sided, and perhaps this might equalize it a bit. Of course, I'd probably recommend we code a biscuit into the AI's status display on occasion, so therefore my suggestion is probably bad for balance anyways. Something has to be done with rev rounds, though.

Looks good, especially #2 in a disaster when everyone shouting for the AI. It probably gets overwhelming to remember all the panicked people. All the points are interesting, although I think the AI can create station messages already.

True that, but the murderboning happens regardless. At a certain point in a rev round, energy weapons get passed out amongst the crew and they tend to start shooting people not marked with a red "R." Making the converted revs not know whether they should energy gun blast someone or not might actually reduce the amount of murdering greyshirts.

I like this idea... potentially big impacts or massive damage causing the lights to go out for a bit would add to the atmosphere. I still think electrical overloads should burst light tubes though. Or do a combo of breaking them and flickering them.

Hello, I don't logon all that much in the forums as I am usually either in-game or busy elsewhere, but I greatly enjoy playing on this server and the community is a blast. I just finished a round and came up with this idea, to potentially spice up rev rounds a bit. Currently how I see it... a revolution winning depends directly on how many players are on the server. So: To somewhat stop the curve from being "Lol Rebel Scum" at 20 players, and "O Gawd Run!" at 40, a potential interesting option is getting the converted revs to only have an indicator of who the leaders of the revolution are, and not for their fellow converted revs. So, in effect (in my opinion) this would make the revolution rounds more chaotic and the lower rank revolutionaries more prone to infiltration and confusion, because a converted rev would not be able to tell who is and who isn't a fellow rev. To balance this, the leaders of the revolutionaries would still be able to tell who is and who isn't a converted rev, and so they would be able to balance the chaos by assigning targets and overseeing the revs in general, as well as their supply points to prevent infiltration. TL;DR: Making the converted revs unable to discern one another. Anyways, cheers and thanks for the game so far. It's been a blast!

I don't know... if people find end round boring than sure I think that a vote option should be there. However, I thought that the end-of-round shuttle period was for making up for any boring end to a shift. IMO, dedicating a whole 15 minutes to the shuttle arriving without some cooldown period so that every single round isn't a flight from meteor/blob/level6virusmix hell might make events a bit monotonous themselves. I personally don't mind a round that ends calmly at all, especially when interesting stuff happens during the main bit of the round itself, whether it be major or minor.

I have a [probably noobish] solution. I agree that the revolver probably is essential to game balance. Seeing a special agent walking in; about to attain evidence of your grisly murder in the Librarian's personal room probably would make you think differently than if a detective were in the room doing the same thing. And by that, I mean that the detective is armed, and the special agent wouldn't have any self-defense. I certainly would be less inclined to try my luck with a detective than this replacement special agent. So, being that I greatly agree with increasing the importance of the Detective-type position... why not make one of the special agents a senior member and the other a junior, and give the senior one the revolver?