Whitelisted Rounds

[adrenalinetooth]

I think it would be a cool idea to have special whitelisted rounds once a month.

Overview
Players would apply on the forums, and admins would add people with a clean and trustable reputation to the whitelist.
It would allow for a nice, high quality gameplay that would be looked forward to, with competent xenos, leaders and other roles.

It would be an event in itself. Instead of hopping on during a random saturday evening and hoping everyone knows what they are doing, players could look forward to one day in a month that would be dedicated to upholding high quality whitelisted gameplay.
Benefits
You would see higher quality role play, less friendly fire, less fuck ups, and less clueless xenos during this round. It would be an enjoyable round to look forward to every month with knowledgable and competent players. With the player base for the round only consisting of a pool of clean, trusted and competent players, the gameplay would feel much more refined and fulfilling.

How it would work
A forum post would be created asking for players to sign up. A set player limit would be in place (let's say, 130). CM staff would hand pick applicants who they trust, have reasonable records, or have shown outstanding behavior on their time in CM to play during this round.

Accepted players would have their names added to a whitelist.
A day of the month at a certain time, the regular round would end prematurely to make room for this event, and the server would reboot with the whitelist loaded, only allowing the included C Keys to connect to the server, with a grace period to allow users to connect. After the round is over, the server is rebooted back with the regular preset.

Why make this post?

I casually proposed the idea to Apop in VC and he basically said the idea is highly unlikely to happen as the staff are extremely busy with more important things and that the CM player base is too immature to make it work, but he said that there is a very small chance it could happen if the devs agreed with the idea and did it out of the kindness of their hearts. I wanted some opinions from others in the community and what you think of this. Is it viable? Perhaps if this is a thing that others than just me think would be cool, the staff might pick it up as a side project. Please discuss and tell me what you think of this.

I know there are many CM veterans out there that have given up due to old friends leaving or getting tired of the repetitiveness. I was hoping something like this would give a reason for all of the vets and high quality players to come on and make it count for one good round out of the month. Everyone can roleplay to their highest level and focus all of their attention towards the round and make it matter for players who would appreciate it.

Just imagine a round like this:
You're playing a smart gunner, and your squad leader knows what the hell he is doing. The medics are all properly prioritizing people and keeping you alive. REQ doesn't have their heads up their ass and they respond to your requests. Command gives proper orders that don't seem out the window. Doctors are all competent and don't kill you. Marines aren't friendly firing and throwing grenades at each other as often. The aliens are putting up a damn good fight and it's not just a stompfest. The queen is good, and larva aren't suiciding into the enemy. When you roleplay, those around you actually respond to your roleplaying and build upon it.
You would be lucky to get two of these variables during a regular round!

Sounds great, right?

Things to consider
- Of course even with this whitelist there would still be shitters and rulebreakers, it's unavoidable.
- Staff are volunteers, so it's completely up to their kindness whether or not they want to go through the nightmare of making this event work: The coding for the whitelist, managing applicants, and supervising the round.

- The whitelist pool doesn't mean that all roles would be filled for competency. Reputable players may be picked but that doesn't mean they would all be filling the command roles, or any other high impact roles. Same thing with the aliens, there is a good player pool but perhaps they may all end up playing humans and no xenos.
Having a system where people call what role they want in the application and then forcing their Ckey to spawn in as that role for the round is out of the question, I already discussed it with apop and he said that it's too much work. Perhaps the best way is if people put in their application what they are aiming to play during the round so people can gauge the roster for the round, and perhaps sway an admin's choice of who to select if they want to play a less demanded role to fill in the gap.

Post Notes
All in all, it's a lot of work for something that would only happen once a month. It's highly unlikely that the devs and staff would want to do something like this, but I will never know what the staff or playerbase thinks of the idea unless I actually post this.



What do you think? Players, would you enjoy a round with high expectations? Veterans who have stopped playing, would you come back for a round like this? Is it too much of a logistical nightmare to pull off for a game like this?

[Karmac]

sounds kinda lame

[spookydonut]

I definitely have more than enough things to work on, also I think this is silly

[Shuffl3]

Adult swim, all kids out of the pool?

[adrenalinetooth]

welp.

[x31stOverlord]

Whilst I have a few comments about this topic, firstly, thank you for bringing this topic up in the community, it is a good idea for those who enjoy role play and it may make for more easily hosted events and more as those involved will be less likely to try to interfere with the event by meta-ing etc.

However. For the implementation, I think a whitelisted round that occurs once per month that reboots the server potentially in the middle of rounds is a bad idea. It will fracture the community and cause a LOT of salt. More salt than Preds and ancient ravs.

How do we then discuss options extending around the heinous amonuts of alterations to code? In my opinion it may be far more practical to have a second server, where it is not listed on Byond and the IP shared to all members of this community who get whitelisted, have the server only accept whitelsited personnel and then you can shut it down when not in use and post reminders about the time/date of the rounds in a separate discord channel with separate perms and potentially even a special subforum?

Now, onto the benefits of this idea, I see potential uses for a whitelisted server. Beyond the most prominent one that is greater role play opportunities and skill of players on the server. It could also act as a minor testing ground for the devs to see how their intended changes work and receive feedback from a group of people who actively want to be involved in the community and have better knowledge/character/ideas than Baldie McCrewcut. It also could act as a test bench for admins who wish to run new events on the main server so that they can get feedback on them from the better RPers and identify on how the Muhreens and memeomorphs on the live server would respond.

Overall I think that this idea could be worked upon and it could potentially make for an interesting addition to the community as a whole.

Edit: Do not get disheartened by terse answers. Allow people to read through and form their own opinions on the matter. Get insight from a broad range of people

Second edit: Spelling and grammar. Damn phone.

[adrenalinetooth]

Whilst I have a few comments about this topic, firstly, thank you for bringing this topic up in the community, it is a good idea for those who enjoy role play and it may make for more easily hosted events and more as those involved will be less likely to try to interfere with the event by meta-ing etc.

However. For the implementation, I think a whitelisted round that occurs once per month that reboots the server potentially in the middle of rounds is a bad idea. It will fracture the community and cause a LOT of salt. More salt than Preds and ancient ravs.

How do we then discuss options extending around the heinous amonuts of alterations to code? In my opinion it may be far more practical to have a second server, where it is not listed on Byond and the IP shared to all members of this community who get whitelisted, have the server only accept whitelsited personnel and then you can shut it down when not in use and post reminders about the time/date of the rounds in a separate discord channel with separate perms and potentially even a special subforum?

Now, onto the benefits of this idea, I see potential uses for a whitelisted server. Beyond the most prominent one that is greater role play opportunities and skill of players on the server. It could also act as a minor testing ground for the devs to see how their intended changes work and receive feedback from a group of people who actively want to be involved in the community and have better knowledge/character/ideas than Baldie McCrewcut. It also could act as a test bench for admins who wish to run new events on the main server so that they can get feedback on them from the better RPers and identify on how the Muhreens and memeomorphs on the love server would respond.

Overall I think that this idea could be worked upon and it could potentially make for an interesting addition to the community as a whole.

Having a second sever is a great idea; I didn't even consider it an option and assumed it wouldn't be a possibility as hosting a second server would surely be expensive and unlikely to happen. You're a staff member however and would know more than I would about the matter.

Edit:
Having two servers run on the same hardware might be feasible. The secondary server would be used infrequently and only started when needed for testing, taking away minimal resources from main server. When an event happens and the secondary server is started, the main player base will mostly flock to the secondary one, shifting the load from one server to the other.

Or you know, getting more hardware dedicated for the second server but that costs money.

A secondary server would make the idea 100% salt proof, but if a secondary server is not possible, letting the players know beforehand a set date and time when the server will shut down to make room for the event with gentle reminders during the round will minimize the salt.

[NethIafins]

We have some kind of CKey knowledge on nice and bad people, and we more than often use people from staff as major people in the event because of the trust (and non ending bashing in staffchat if they fail)

Some admins probably have their own good/bad lists. I would definitely had that if I was.

Your suggestion is fine, it just doesn't work in our non-infinite time universe

[x31stOverlord]

Having a second sever is a great idea; I didn't even consider it an option and assumed it wouldn't be a possibility as hosting a second server would surely be expensive and unlikely to happen. You're a staff member however and would know more than I would about the matter.

It is likely easier(tm) than trying to code in a special round that restarts the server with a whitelisted access, the feasability of such a server? I don't know, I'm a trial mod with barely more info than you on the administration of the server.

I think it may be manageable with some ideas I have formulated but they would depend entirely on the head staffs ideas and thoughts on this matter.

I wanted to put my ideas forward and show that some ideas can be implemented if we wish to put that additional effort. It will take a long time to do even if it is agreed upon. And this will need a LOT of feedback from the staff and community before it is even pushed into a position where it might become reality

[Karmac]

Apop's mentioned the idea of a second server before, I'm unsure if he's still got any interest in the prospect. At the time myself and a few others responded to him saying it would be a good idea.

[apophis775]

The "second server" was gonna be a star trek server and is now an "abandoned project". Luckily, a REAL Star Trek server is opening soon.

[Karmac]

The "second server" was gonna be a star trek server and is now an "abandoned project". Luckily, a REAL Star Trek server is opening soon.

that'd be even more boring than a whitelisted round

[Simo94]

this is like fixing a boxing match. the joy of SS13 is in its chaos and randomness factor, if everyone did their job perfectly then wheres the fun in that? a lot of the fun comes from not knowing who is who, who is going to do their job, who is going to fuck up, how would u manage their fuck up and what would u do if ur fucked up yourself.

[flaksim]

Its too much of a logistical nightmare.
Apop also has a valid point, the majority of the playerbase is pretty immature. I personally think that about 70% of the player population are shitler teens, whom you really cant cat herd into any semblance of roleplay. The ones left are in insufficient numbers to actually run matches solo.

[adrenalinetooth]

this is like fixing a boxing match. the joy of SS13 is in its chaos and randomness factor, if everyone did their job perfectly then wheres the fun in that? a lot of the fun comes from not knowing who is who, who is going to do their job, who is going to fuck up, how would u manage their fuck up and what would u do if ur fucked up yourself.

I agree that the randomness factor adds variety and fun. However, I believe a unique variety of gameplay is available from having a pool of competent and roleplaying players that is not available during a regular round. Of course this round would have a much more serious tone to it which makes it a bit 'boring' to most, but with everyone being competent and roleplaying, much more can be done that would just simply not be possible during regular rounds. Furthermore, if you fear this round being boring, you have all month to know when to not play as the date is set ahead of time.
Also, if the round were hosted on a second server, you don't even have to bother with it. The people that find it fun can play, and everyone else who doesn't can continue playing on the regular server.

[flaksim]

The "second server" was gonna be a star trek server and is now an "abandoned project". Luckily, a REAL Star Trek server is opening soon.

I worked on a game like that a couple of years ago, We had quite alot of art finished on it.
Some of the assets (we actually had some full maps done aswell)
https://imgur.com/a/gUuI9
https://imgur.com/a/iHvAf
https://imgur.com/a/cl2dL
https://imgur.com/a/OhfLE

[Sambalu]

I don't think there are enough players that could be whitelisted to run a round like this, with everyone being spread accross different time zones.
It'd take a shitload of time for staff to set up, and just imagine the salt that having your round ended beacuse the whitelisted round starting would cuase. Even if all those concerns were invalid, it would still be extremely low-pop, and that wouldn't be fun either.

[Slywater]

I agree that this would be too select, and it would not be easy to manage that many whitelists.
In addition, I don't think the community would like these 'premium' rounds, in essence. That being said, I know how you feel in terms of overall player competence.

[Jonesome]

What if all marine roles were whitelisted. Then they'd think twice about buckshotting someone in the face.

[Sulaboy]

What about a whitelist for events, I'm pretty sure you guys try to use synth whitelisted players to take roles in events, but what about a whitelist for admin spawned stuff. I'm talking about having a pool of people to draw from to run roles like the CLF CO who understand what their role in the round is supposed to be, this could help events function in a more orderly fashion.

[Sambalu]

I don't really think we need more whitelists. If someone's being a shitter as an event role, staff are usually quick to deal with them. And from what I've seen, CLF commanders and other comparable roles are often played by staff anyways.