Ranting about the behavior in-game

[Wickedtemp]

I know that this is more of an RP problem, and while people like to call this a 'Medium-RP' server, it really falls flat on that simply because the game revolves more around the mechanics than any sort of RP... So maybe I'm in the minority here.

But when a marine gets blown up on the ship because some idiot threw a grenade, or when a guy stands on the landing pad for too long and gets gibbed... Characters just witnessed a death, and you know what the overwhelming responses are? "HAHAHAHA!!! OH MY GOD, DID YOU SEE THAT?! FUNNY AS HELL, MAN!"
"Eh, one marine doesn't matter."
"Well, it's not like they're not replaceable, I mean, if we had a funeral for every marine that died, we would go bankrupt in a day."

If you're going to at least say this is a "medium" RP server, you can't even pretend that this would be acceptable on ANY military vessel. Mercenaries, maybe. Then, there's the whole "This marine isn't listening to me. I'm going to beat the shit out of them to show how good of a Commander/Squad Leader I am."

Right... That'd be assault and MP's should probably arrest the guys that do this. It's not the Squad Leaders job to be 'the law'. It's not the Commander's job to be 'the law'. This is the whole reason we have MP. What's the proper sentence for neglect of duty/insubordiantion? Anything below a 30 minute brig-time and demotion. Not a beating. If you're going to play a strict SL or Commander, do it within Marine Law.

End rant.

[Focks]

I definitely agree with this all of this post, most of the time. Occasionally it has to be said though, especially in the case of the landing pad, maybe besides adding a ten second or so warning when something's coming in, you don't stand on the landing pad, and it's sort of an absurd situation in the first place, someone's not going to stand in the marked spot that a dropship is hurdling towards. And while I would enjoy a more RP-driven environment, past the slow points at the start and the end, unless you enforce rules about it, I think it would make combat and fighting more clunky, more so for the aliens than marines, which as you said, this server revolves around mechanics quite a bit. So changing things runs the risk of alienating part of your current player base, along with adding more work in the short run for the admins that already seem stretched thin. Would it be nice to see? Yeah. Is it practical or likely to happen? I don't think so.

[Dyne]

Good rant, depends on characters.
In a fighting military losses are...hmm...dehumanized and expected, up to an extent. Also MP's on the field are...not there, to put it shortly.
Military and internal violence are a reality, albeit a fought one.

[Wickedtemp]

I know, a combat-driven server is difficult to make an RP server, it's really one or another... But seriously, the quotes I mentioned are not only from marines, but from Command staff as well. The COMMANDER, even. That goes beyond bad RP, hell, even a LOW RP server would have rules against that!

[Dyne]

Well, real commanders also mourn their men later, to be honest.
EDIT: That said, would be good if we get some ceremonies and things, at least after the round is over.

[Wickedtemp]

Mourning them after a conflict is over, and openly laughing about the death of a marine are two very, VERY different things. And some of the other quotes, talkin' about how they don't get funerals... Pretty sure they do, after the conflict is over, or once their remains are sent home. I'm not in the military but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Bottom line is, the marines and Command need to stop fuckin' acting like the lives of the soldiers are worthless. Yes, there's a high chance they'll die. But that doesn't mean they should just all believe they're useless pawns of Command that don't have any meaning whatsoever other than the fact they've got dog-tags. C'mon, they're supposed to act like Marines, not that stereotype "I exist only so that the Commander may order me to my death" shit. Or the "Badass who don't got time to get shot." cliche. Seriously, each round is FULL of those idiots.

EDIT: There should at least be a STANDARD to this shit... LIke how MP can't just beat prisoners and all that, it's stated in the rules. We need to have a set bottom line, "You don't have to RP with other people, but you DO have to RP your assigned role TO AN EXTENT. Such as, you wouldn't see a crazy, bloodthirsty Commander that loses their temper and beats their crew to death. You wouldn't see a Marine that reacts to a comrades death by pointing and laughing. You wouldn't see a crew member who's mentally unstable. Etc"

[Derpislav]

I only RP near characters that I know also do - why bother if everyone around you is here to quickscope rek dem ayyys? Something something throwing pearls to the swine.

As much as I dislike Banter/Sanctum for (unintentionally) being the "master race" of the server, their name list is a good reference for that. If you see one or more of these marines on your screen, at least one person will care if you do something other than 1v1 a T3. And that's nice.

[Seehund]

Mourning them after a conflict is over, and openly laughing about the death of a marine are two very, VERY different things. And some of the other quotes, talkin' about how they don't get funerals... Pretty sure they do, after the conflict is over, or once their remains are sent home. I'm not in the military but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Bottom line is, the marines and Command need to stop fuckin' acting like the lives of the soldiers are worthless. Yes, there's a high chance they'll die. But that doesn't mean they should just all believe they're useless pawns of Command that don't have any meaning whatsoever other than the fact they've got dog-tags. C'mon, they're supposed to act like Marines, not that stereotype "I exist only so that the Commander may order me to my death" shit. Or the "Badass who don't got time to get shot." cliche. Seriously, each round is FULL of those idiots.

EDIT: There should at least be a STANDARD to this shit... LIke how MP can't just beat prisoners and all that, it's stated in the rules. We need to have a set bottom line, "You don't have to RP with other people, but you DO have to RP your assigned role TO AN EXTENT. Such as, you wouldn't see a crazy, bloodthirsty Commander that loses their temper and beats their crew to death. You wouldn't see a Marine that reacts to a comrades death by pointing and laughing. You wouldn't see a crew member who's mentally unstable. Etc"

Definitely agreed. These people are supposed to be human beings, but sometimes I really wonder about that.

I only RP near characters that I know also do - why bother if everyone around you is here to quickscope rek dem ayyys? Something something throwing pearls to the swine.

As much as I dislike Banter/Sanctum for (unintentionally) being the "master race" of the server, their name list is a good reference for that. If you see one or more of these marines on your screen, at least one person will care if you do something other than 1v1 a T3. And that's nice.

Also masterfully put.

[Toroic]

My impression of marines is that they're 40% just intrested in combat, 40% mostly intrested in RP and drama, 10% are combat only but incompetent, 10% are good at playing their role and competent.

[Disco Dalek]

I guess the difficulty of proper RP also depends on your role. It's pretty easy to forget the RP aspects as a medic when three people are bleeding out and a fourth is trying to actually act like someone who just saw their squad die and had an arm ripped off. I'll admit I often forget to even speak to half the people I fix up even though I enjoy the times someone does act like they actually care about dying. IRL a medic would at least try to reassure pretty much every patient they see, but the difficulty of having a conversation while chasing the wounded is rather daunting at times.

[Wickedtemp]

I'm perfectly fine with people not RPing. I don't care. It's when people RP being a lil' shit for the lulz. That's why I think we need to have a standard. RP? Cool. No RP? Sure. Bad RP? Nope.

[Dyne]

Define "Bad RP"? Also having "No RP" in a roleplaying game on a roleplaying server is pretty weird.

[Wickedtemp]

Bad RP as in the quotes in the original post. There's a difference between saying/doing something negative and stupid, and not saying/doing anything at all.

And this isn't exactly a roleplaying server... It's built mostly around the in-game mechanics. Guns, explosions, marine vs aliens. If there was no RP, this server would... probably function more or less the same. It even says so in the rules, RP is ENCOURAGED, but NOT REQUIRED.

[apophis775]

I'd rather not enforce more "roleplay" rules, but does anyone have suggestions about this?

I mean, I have NO PROBLEM with people giggling at an idiot in looc, but i agree that doing it IC is bad.

[Wickedtemp]

I'd rather not enforce more "roleplay" rules, but does anyone have suggestions about this?

I mean, I have NO PROBLEM with people giggling at an idiot in looc, but i agree that doing it IC is bad.

My idea for this? Add a rule that basically says something among the lines of

"If you're playing as a Marine, or other human crew member, you must act like an actual human would react and also according to rank. A Commander would likely be more professional than a standard Marine or a Cargo Technician. Marines are NOT pawns, deaths are not something to be taken lightly or laughed at. Cloning isn't always an option, and deceased crew would be given a funeral service after all of this is through."

Something like this. Staff would probably be able to improve this a bunch.

[Aeleto]

As someone that plays the medic role frequently, RPing sometimes becomes an impossible task due to the big numbers of wounded/infected/dead. Cargo and Engineering sometimes suffer this as well with the constant requests of supplies and atmos-fixing duties.

[Wickedtemp]

As someone that plays the medic role frequently, RPing sometimes becomes an impossible task due to the big numbers of wounded/infected/dead. Cargo and Engineering sometimes suffer this as well with the constant requests of supplies and atmos-fixing duties.

Yeah, that's cool, I'm okay with that...

What I'm NOT okay with is people saying "Oh, well it's not like it matters. Marines are replaceable." and "Eh. We've got cloners."

That's NOT okay. I call that 'Negative RP'. And Negative RP is worse than not RPing at all. Especially when done by people in Command staff. So I think we should have a rule set in place saying that this kind of shitty RP is actually worse than not RPing at all, and will end up with a warning/note, and then a ban if it continues. ESPECIALLY coming from Command.

[apophis775]

Actually, I feel that the "Marines are replacable" is a PERFECT stance for command staff.

Do you have any idea how often I was told/saw people being told how expendable they were when I was in the Army?

[Kreydis]

Actually, I feel that the "Marines are replacable" is a PERFECT stance for command staff.

Do you have any idea how often I was told/saw people being told how expendable they were when I was in the Army?

At least once every 2 hours. And looking at some of the people who enlist it's not surprising many people think that way.

[Wickedtemp]

Actually, I feel that the "Marines are replacable" is a PERFECT stance for command staff.

Do you have any idea how often I was told/saw people being told how expendable they were when I was in the Army?

Okay, I don't have military experience but I'm sure that you DO know that they might not actually believe that military units really are expendable, yes? If I had to guess, they say that to knock the soldiers off their "I'm a hero!" high-horse.
Anyways, that's RL, not Spess Muhreens.

In Spess Muhreens, military units are definitely NOT expendable. Sometimes we have 5 marines, sometimes we've got like 50. Either way, they're not expendable in this game.

Bottom line is, its shitty behavior and I highly doubt any RL Command that you encountered would look at the body of a marine that got literally torn apart and say "Eh. They're expendable."

That's not Command. That's being a sociopath. And there are server rules about having sane characters.

It's mostly Command and MP where I see this problem. They get a power-trip, declare themselves the all-powerful of the ship and anyone who disagrees gets a baton to the knees, because they think it's acceptable to kill/incapacitate marines due to them being "expendable and worthless".

Yes, I understand that some military officials happily say that to new recruits or even battle-hardened individuals, but in-game, it's being taken a bit too far. And I think it needs to be addressed.

[razerwing]

I've always felt that the 'Soldiers are Expendable' thing fits better when you a) Have enough of them, b) Have enough Competency among them to butter toast without dropping it, and c) Are the Commissar of an Imperial Guard Regiment. And even then, they're viewed as expendable in the Guard because they literally are. Their equipment is worth more than them in every sense of the word.

When you've been on a ship with the same people for God knows how long, having done God knows how many missions before hand and knowing that this mission may very well be your last, I'd expect that generally speaking everyone on the ship at least plays nice with each other. Unless the Commander has been demoted to the Sulaco for being bad, and the Sulaco has become the new-age equivalent of Bad Company (where all the rejects and shitheads go), there is no reason for this kind of thing to happen on a consistent basis.

If you are playing Commander, and a few minutes after your marines have thawed out, then look at your style first and see if there's anything you could have done better.

I.E. not being a goddamned Commissar.

And the only thing I can suggest in the way of how to fix this is to just watch the player complaints. It sucks that this has to be an issue, but if it goes on for long enough then people will want it fixed, and they will call out for the help to do it. Anywho, there's my two cents.

[Wickedtemp]

I've always felt that the 'Soldiers are Expendable' thing fits better when you a) Have enough of them, b) Have enough Competency among them to butter toast without dropping it, and c) Are the Commissar of an Imperial Guard Regiment. And even then, they're viewed as expendable in the Guard because they literally are. Their equipment is worth more than them in every sense of the word.

When you've been on a ship with the same people for God knows how long, having done God knows how many missions before hand and knowing that this mission may very well be your last, I'd expect that generally speaking everyone on the ship at least plays nice with each other. Unless the Commander has been demoted to the Sulaco for being bad, and the Sulaco has become the new-age equivalent of Bad Company (where all the rejects and shitheads go), there is no reason for this kind of thing to happen on a consistent basis.

If you are playing Commander, and a few minutes after your marines have thawed out, then look at your style first and see if there's anything you could have done better.

I.E. not being a goddamned Commissar.

And the only thing I can suggest in the way of how to fix this is to just watch the player complaints. It sucks that this has to be an issue, but if it goes on for long enough then people will want it fixed, and they will call out for the help to do it. Anywho, there's my two cents.

I'd honestly file complaints against players that play this type of Commander, the only reason I don't is because I can't get past the thought that, chances are, the majority of people that comment on the complaint would be a part of the "MUHREEN EXPENDABLE MARINE PAWNS MARINE WORTHLESS!" circlejerk. Also is.. it even technically against the rules as Command to be a complete piece of shit that doesn't value human life? I'd say that would go against the "No insane players." rule because someone who does not place ANY value in the life of a human likely wouldn't be given a job where they are in charge of a large number of humans.

So, with that in mind... How to fix this? Rule update, make an announcement in the forums about aforementioned rule update extending the "No insane players." to Command/Anyone in a Leadership role, that purposefully playing a character that shows an obvious case of apathy towards the deaths of soldiers, or that happily mock the deaths of their crew/happily cause injury to crew. Make it against the rules, then enforce the rules.

That said, if Command decides to use their 'Chain of Command' on a marine, (As MP, I'd consider it assault and if I saw that in-game I'd at the LEAST question the Commander about it and MAYBE brig them for a short, short time as they play an important role and can't be locked up for too long) as long as it's justifiable then I don't see too much of an issue with it other than the IC legality.

[sicktrigger]

someone who does not place ANY value in the life of a human likely wouldn't be given a job where they are in charge of a large number of humans.

ahahahaha

[Wickedtemp]

ahahahaha

Cool, so you think that sociopaths should be given Command roles?

[sicktrigger]

Cool, so you think that sociopaths should be given Command roles?

ofc i don't think that people who don't care about others /should/ be given power, but it's super naive to think that they aren't!