Pred Voting: What you intend to stand for.

[Symbiosis]

To give our fellow players an idea of who they’re voting for and what they’ll be getting I suggest we all provide a quick blurb about what we aim for if we’re volunteering for the “Semi-Elder” council.

Example:


Thwei Kv’var - Symbiosis

Main Focus:

More freedom for players - more clearly written and less vague rules. Stricter in some ways to compensate.

Removal of the Lodge as a necessity - push for more “hunting visuals” (heads on spikes, able to make gibs with a human corpse, etc) that provide a better server atmosphere for both xenos and marines.

Combat Focus - Allow for captures for Preds, slave fighting allowed, ability for Preds to tone down abilities to fight Humans in one on one combat in a fair setting. (Rather than removing all your armor)

Also, tone down certain Pred weapons and tools that give them an unfair advantage. To be given more freedom - certain trade offs must be made.

[Sneakyr]

Ratar Vensch, Sneakyranger.

I'm running for elder council with the basis that if the community thinks I can handle it and that I'd be a good addition, I'll do the best I can to make it better. I've been looking for a way to reimburse all the time I've spent here cost-free anyway.
I already have a few plans for things I would improve and how to do so, which I'll get to later, but my immediate plan of action if I were elected would be:
1.Whitelist application freeze.
2.Rapid fire workthrough of app backlog.
3.Re-writing of the application process from the ground up, while keeping what works of the old (not that much, mostly the how you would play section) and removing everything else.
4. Applications reinstated.
Hopefully this will take less than a month to do and it can be reinstated ASAP. When it comes to predators in the past, every single action has been incredibly slow or incredibly sudden. A steady pace would be ideal, with clear goals.

I'm also going to cheekily throw in the fact that I was the one who actually *wrote* the predator elder council thread and laid out a lot of the foundations for it. I'm not going to claim to have done that alone, of course - the denizens of #yautja helped immensely with both which of my ideas were bad and even contributing some of their own, or reminding me to clarify something.

After that, I want the predator whitelist to be a smoothly running machine - the whole purpose I wrote up the council in the first place. Whatever it takes to get it to that point past the app rewrite - first, though, we need to see how many problems the application rewrite will alleviate. I also want to work a lot on the honor code in conjunction with new features - for example, a device that allows predators to stun a large group of marines without harming them but preventing them from using it to kill any stunned marines. Some way to allow for more equal one on one duels at will (a sort of pulling of punches, as it were) for humans while keeping current power when fighting more dangerous opponents.

I've also got a few pre-planned ideas.
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Firstly, it is incredibly common for a predator player to come up with a unique and interesting character quirk or background or personality and then find out that it doesn't translate well in game or just isn't as fun as it would have originally seemed. To solve this, I propose the following:
1. A roster of predator players as well as ckeys, freshly created, for this use and possible future use.
2. The old app format is repurposed (with slight modification) into a "create new predator character" sheet - the story is also heavily recommended to be as short as one can make it if not entirely optional. After filling this out, it is sent to an elder for review and then added to the roster if the other elders agree with the first's analysis. As far as player reports go, names and ckeys are shown at the end of the round anyway, and there is also the aforementioned databank of names.
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When the pred application process is re-written, I have a few suggestions for how it should go down.
Currently, going through the average "length over substance" pred app seriously is a painful process only endurable by the most dedicated and slows down application reviews tremendously, to the point where the average reaction is simply the player's ckey and marine name. Ideally, the story requirement is minimized (perhaps made optional, topic for further discussion) and a set of questions of their understanding of the predator role and a deeper sense of how they intend to play their predator replaces that void. Applications would be judged on the basis of whether or not the applicant's understanding of the role is adequate as well as community reputation - because, let's face it, the application process is at *least* partly popularity contest but this isn't inherently a bad thing as long as it is tempered with an objective, equally essential method of whether or not the applicant fails or passes.

I may edit this in the future with new ideas or clarifications.

[Imperator_Titan]

Zahn-Teer

I've been predator whitelist for about 8-9 months now and I think I have an idea of where our problems lie and how to fix them.

Generally my main focus would be fixing the issue of clarifying many things that still have yet to be clarified.
This was one of my most pressing concerns about four months ago when I first realized how bad it was, with the creation of my honour code clarification thread, which showed that we didn't actually have any head/elder oversight, since they all left CM, stopped playing, retired, or something else along those lines. At this point, the theory of a council had been suggested many times by many people.

Clarifying those little things would go a long way towards helping out predators in general, be it old and experienced players who lived under the wrong presumption or new players who had no idea. The issue with the code being so vague is that predator players have no idea what to do in the sense that they don't know what's allowed or not, since some things are not mentioned in the code and in the fear of being removed, they simply don't try anything new and stick to the old generic roar from cloak as a roleplay gimmick. It's not just a meme, it's true in some parts because that's all that some players are willing to do to avoid being removed.

My second thing would most likely be trying to get predators in general to realize that the round is not about them. It's about the community as a whole. Do you think a predator that uncloaks and decaps a marine will leave a good memory in the marines head? He'll probably keep that bad image of predators with him until proven otherwise because at some points, that's all we are. Now, do you think a predator that makes a marine fight for his freedom who eventually manages to best the predator himself and escape, would leave a good memory in the marines head? Yes, it would. It's all about that one player whose round we CAN enhance. I play round after round of predator and have a few of these rounds but I know, when you have that round, it'll be one of the best rounds you'll ever have. As a predator AND as a marine. It's all about that leap we CAN take but we DON'T.

I haven't used the heavy caster once against anyone, regardless of who, because I know my actions have consequences and how much they suck for the receiving side, as a predator AND as a marine. Having to head up because you caught a spike in the head for being caught in the wrong place in the wrong time is the worst and it STILL happens. I'm not saying stop taking the spike launcher because in certain situations, you really do need something to ward marines off, I'm saying, stop spraying wildly into a crowd just because one marine shot you. This isn't fun for anyone involved.

If my activity is coming into question, being a manager and whatnot, I'll stop you right there. Everyone I know can attest that my activity has not wavered ever since I've become a manager and I don't expect that to change. In my eyes, you need a good forum presence alongside a good Ingame presence to effectively push some things out. If I don't play, what point is applying for the council anyways?

There's much more I'd like to do however, that's the primary thing I'd focus on, were I to be elected.

[Renomaki]

I myself decided to join the election because I wish to use the position to alter predator gameplay to make it more enjoyable to both play as and interact/fight with predators. What would I attempt to push for?

Well, for one, I intend to push for a few weapon/tool rebalances in order to make melee combat more enjoyable for predators, while also ensuring that those we hunt are encouraged to put up a fight instead of fleeing like bitches all the time. Once such rebalance I'd like to work towards is reverting and adjusting the predator trap so that it returns to its former glory as a tool to trap and force xenos to fight with all their might, without crippling said xeno to the point of taking the fun OUT of fighting them. Chasing fast xenos all over the map isn't fun, but neither is having a xeno that is completely crippled and unable to use their abilities to put up a proper fight.

Another thing I aim to do is, like Symb above, make the creation of predator lodges an optional task instead of mandatory, considering how useless said lodges are anyways. They are nothing but a burden, and just like symb, I would like to dedicate the resources and abilities predators have to instead focus on creating setpieces, casually altering the map with strange decor and structures to alter the marine experience in a number of ways and induce curiosity. Plus, lets be honest, it is more fun than sitting around waiting for xenos to grow...

I also want to try and put an end to the old habit marines have of killing predators only for their gear, since it is very poor RP for a marine who just killed a strange creature to suddenly drop their own equipment in favor of looting and wearing predator armor and weapons. There are already a few features for certain weapons, but I'd like to try and find a way to extend this to other items as well, putting an end to this ridiculous trend of marines running around with full predator gear instead of collecting it for the research department to study (thus creating more RP when a predator dies, as is intended). After all, it isn't very logical for marines to magically know that the masks predators have are hugger proof, no?

And, In-gamewise, if the position does promote a predator player to a higher rank, I'd love to provide the young bloods some form of leadership to make up for the lack of elders lately... Since the majority of them are long gone, there has been no leaders for the younglings to go to in times of distress. Having some proper leadership once again would be great to have!

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

The biggest thing I want from the council:

Expand RP potential for preds.

I can't care less about weapons, we're meant to be for roleplaying, so anything done to expand that is a good thing.