Update Discussion Thread (September 2018)

[kastion]

Xeno ckey/names is a double edged sword, yes it has the benefits as described but is it worth the elitism and associated toxicity that comes with it? Previously the answer to this has always been no.

If there were rules set in place for conduct then I don't see a problem with it. No different than marines being able to see whos who. Worst case scenario you whitelist queens and then there would be no elitism at all unless they wanted to risk losing their whitelist.

[xXen0zS1ay3rXx]

I wouldn't mind allowing Benos to have names, maybe only allow them to choose a nickname after reaching elder/ancient or something like that. Ala Ancient Lurker (Kneecapper) instead of a number.

Would give req+rep and etc like for marines who like to static name.

[Kesserline]

Spooky.

Elitism is not a bad thing in itself. Willing to be improve oneself to be better? That's not wrong in itself.

The toxicity though is a real problem. But marine playerbase is way larger than xeno one, yet, this is the least toxic gaming community I have ever played on.

You have retards, you have douches, you have meme lords, but you only have rare, or very silent toxic players.

I'm talking real toxicity, League of Legends level, or CSGO.

Xeno players are still human beings, subject for their thirst of glory and recognition.

[solidfury7]

I wouldn't mind xenos being given nickname or the ability to set descriptions tbh.

As long as it was enforced heavily so its not memey

[Steelpoint]

Xenos have any sort of individuality by mechanical design would strike me as the antithesis of Xenos.

Your not Subject 0 or the Xenomorph protagonists from any AvP video game. Your one of those background Xenomorphs who does their job in the hivemind.

[kastion]

Xenos have any sort of individuality by mechanical design would strike me as the antithesis of Xenos.

Your not Subject 0 or the Xenomorph protagonists from any AvP video game. Your one of those background Xenomorphs who does their job in the hivemind.

Xenos already have 0 roleplay so who cares. This is about making the game better not making the roleplay better.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

Even the background characters have names, albeit forgettable ones like Steve, Paul, Jake anyway. I can't see why xeno can't have something between them. Gameplay>Realism is the argument we use anyway.

[Steelpoint]

Low roleplay is still roleplay.

[Novus Luna]

I wouldn't mind allowing Benos to have names, maybe only allow them to choose a nickname after reaching elder/ancient or something like that. Ala Ancient Lurker (Kneecapper) instead of a number.

Would give req+rep and etc like for marines who like to static name.

I like this. Make it so if you reach Elder or Tier 3, you can pick a short nickname.

Also, speaking as someone that plays Marines and Xenos pretty evenly...Xenos have been kinda shafted recently.

[CABAL]

Low roleplay is still roleplay.

0.0000000001% is still more than 0% so we have to round up to "Low" instead of "None".

Xenos by the lore are very inteligent even as individual. They are not a "mindless drones" becouse they can operate on their own as seen in first movie.
What about AvP movie? "Grid" alien. It was capable of killing two predators, pretty unique for a xenomorph, you can even see Grid leading few other xenos just like we have Queen giving "stars" to good xenos. When Predator was plasmacasting other xenos, Grid hid in shadows to avoid plasma bolts, yet other xenos sharing hivemind weren't so smart.
A movie/spinoff/lore fact that was put to CM13 and it works nearly the same. Random xeno number 666 killed few marines, so he seems to be a good leader.

Existance of those "unique" xenos proves that xeno's "Hivemind" does not work in the way that some of us think. "Hivemind" is not magic. It appears to be similar in concept to LAN connection.

As somebody posted before: Let xenos choose a name after reaching Eldery, or when Queens chooses for a specific one.

[Blade2000Br]

The entire point of the server is marines to be the protagonists and xenos be the antags. Those antags are just faceless monsters that the badasses took down like its a cakewalk.

This is still a MRP in the aliens setting. In horror movies, the antags would always be a generic villain, while the protags have a entire backstory supporting then. Thats what we do here.

But if xenos really want to be recognized a bit, I wouldn't be agaisn't xenos have static numbers that they can choose roundstart. If they don't, it will be randomized.

[Butlerblock]

maybe stop being elitist scum and have an open mind to ideas that make the sides winrate more equal. there’s not a single situation in which i would ever trust another xeno, because they could be anyone, yet the marines don’t have this problem because you can recognize a competent at first glance. why should xeno teamwork as a whole be hurt just so you can have your “we’re the main characters” fantasy bullshit.

[CABAL]

The entire point of the server is marines to be the protagonists and xenos be the antags. Those antags are just faceless monsters that the badasses took down like its a cakewalk.

This is still a MRP in the aliens setting. In horror movies, the antags would always be a generic villain, while the protags have a entire backstory supporting then. Thats what we do here.

But if xenos really want to be recognized a bit, I wouldn't be agaisn't xenos have static numbers that they can choose roundstart. If they don't, it will be randomized.

What the server is achieving in it? Let xenos see xenos names. They don't have to be faceless monsters for themselfs.

Static numbers gives this, but makes it harder. Instead of something creative, or Ckey you have number that some have to remember, or even write down. Elite Runner 334... Cabal? No, Cabal plays 343. Oh, you're right.

[Blade2000Br]

What the server is achieving in it? Let xenos see xenos names. They don't have to be faceless monsters for themselfs.

Static numbers gives this, but makes it harder. Instead of something creative, or Ckey you have number that some have to remember, or even write down. Elite Runner 334... Cabal? No, Cabal plays 343. Oh, you're right.

The server is not hurt because xenos can't be recognized easily. Again, they are just antags. Antags don't have any kind of backstory for it. They just exist to be a problem the protags have to overcome.

And whats the problem with that? Its not like you are dying for not being recognized.

I have played xeno before, without no one knowing it was me, I got recognization from the queen just for being a good leader and good xeno. I don't have to wave my ckey around to be recognized. If you do good, others xenos will know you are not the averange xeno.

[Steelpoint]

Humans and Predators have names because they live in a society where naming is important, and they've been alive for many decades (or centuries in a Predators case).

The majority of Xenomorphs we see in game have been alive for hours. You can make a case the round start Xenos may have been alive for a few days or even weeks at most.

Why would an entity that has only had life for mere hours suddenly have a unique name? Let alone an entity that lives in a homogeneous hivemind, whose only sense of "free will" is blind service to the species and their Queen (in that order).

The current Xeno naming scheme is perfectly fitting with the style and theme of the Xenomorphs.

[kastion]

I dont know why yall are trying to get all realism/roleplay on this. We dont care about that at all. We want names so we can tell who is who we dont care about names IC. MAke them purely OOC with our game tag who cares. Also marines are red shirts they arent heroes, none of you matter at all and your arent the main character of the story so I dont know what you are going on about.

[Butlerblock]

because the gameplay is completely fucked over because of it, and the server is borderline lrp anyways, so who cares other than mindless marine mains

[kamenkuro]

0.0000000001% is still more than 0% so we have to round up to "Low" instead of "None".

Xenos by the lore are very inteligent even as individual. They are not a "mindless drones" becouse they can operate on their own as seen in first movie.
What about AvP movie? "Grid" alien. It was capable of killing two predators, pretty unique for a xenomorph, you can even see Grid leading few other xenos just like we have Queen giving "stars" to good xenos. When Predator was plasmacasting other xenos, Grid hid in shadows to avoid plasma bolts, yet other xenos sharing hivemind weren't so smart.
A movie/spinoff/lore fact that was put to CM13 and it works nearly the same. Random xeno number 666 killed few marines, so he seems to be a good leader.

Existance of those "unique" xenos proves that xeno's "Hivemind" does not work in the way that some of us think. "Hivemind" is not magic. It appears to be similar in concept to LAN connection.

As somebody posted before: Let xenos choose a name after reaching Eldery, or when Queens chooses for a specific one.

Wrong. Problem solving ain't all that much. A lot of animals can solve problems, the only smart xeno is the queen. They will literally throw bodies at a problem til it stops being a problem. They are not smart, they are simply able to perceive problems. How well they solve them varies. If anything they're about as smart or smarter than apes.

mindless marine mains

Maybe if playing xeno was fun folks wouldn't main marines

[Simo94]

Wrong. Problem solving ain't all that much. A lot of animals can solve problems, the only smart xeno is the queen. They will literally throw bodies at a problem til it stops being a problem. They are not smart, they are simply able to perceive problems. How well they solve them varies. If anything they're about as smart or smarter than apes.

Well, according to muh lore, Xenos arent your normie biological animals, they are bio-mechanical, like, cybrog animals, because they were engineered by a rogue synth, he used the same technology used to create synths, so yeah, they are supposed to be a lil smarter than your regular animals, and the movies show signs that they are indeed smart and really fast learners.

[Grubstank]

I wouldn't want to have an easy way of finding xeno ckeys during game. Perhaps it would be neat to have a list of xenos numbers come up alongside ckeys in chat at the end of the round-- a form of "end credits". I think that would be an effective way to balance the elitism/toxicity against a sense of accomplishment/reputation.

But if xenos really want to be recognized a bit, I wouldn't be agaisn't xenos have static numbers that they can choose roundstart. If they don't, it will be randomized.

I also think this is an excellent compromise

[immaspaceninja]

Well, according to muh lore, Xenos arent your normie biological animals, they are bio-mechanical, like, cybrog animals, because they were engineered by a rogue synth, he used the same technology used to create synths, so yeah, they are supposed to be a lil smarter than your regular animals, and the movies show signs that they are indeed smart and really fast learners.

It's Ridley's lore tho.
The lore got divided into 2 branches since the second movie. Xenos are just bugs there.

[DefinitelyAlone0309]

We've always argued Gameplay > Realism for a lot of things already, so why not again now ? Xeno needs some signs to know who they can trust to do their job. Static numbers aren't really recognizable enough, and nothing's stopping another xeno from randomizing right into your static number anyway, unless you guys want to make the static numbers unique.

Toxicity here is either too negligible to notice, or punishable if it gets out of hands. The pros heavily outweigh the cons here, is what I'm saying. Letting xeno see the ckeys of each other in Hive Status would also have the effect of "hey, this guy knows his shit, and I'm a new player. I should stick with him to learn stuff and get better" that marines have since the beginning of time now.

[spookydonut]

We can trial hive mind messages showing ckey so that xenos can recognise specific players without marines being able to see who each one is. I have a feeling it will end poorly though.

[Snypehunter007]

We can trial hive mind messages showing ckey so that xenos can recognise specific players without marines being able to see who each one is. I have a feeling it will end poorly though.

Most likely. I'd highly recommend against it as we've (as, when I was on, staff internally and a community as a whole) discussed this issue multiple times in discussion and suggestion threads. It would open a can of worms to give xenos a name system and AT MOST, I could see maybe an end of round list display the ckey of all xenos, but it doesn't seem like it would be really important at all.

[kastion]

Most likely. I'd highly recommend against it as we've (as, when I was on, staff internally and a community as a whole) discussed this issue multiple times in discussion and suggestion threads. It would open a can of worms to give xenos a name system and AT MOST, I could see maybe an end of round list display the ckey of all xenos, but it doesn't seem like it would be really important at all.

I don't know about everyone, but to me an end of the round list of whos who doesn't matter at all to me. I want to know who is who so I know who I work well with as a team so I can follow them around. I want to know who is who so when marines are salty and get on an xeno and commit suicide on purpose I know who did it. I don't care about in game IC names at all and I don't care about accolades at the end of the round. I just want better team work.