Where the F is RP-oriented development?

[AssassinT90]

This will be a quick rant 'cause I got a bus to catch soon and I'm not even done packing up yet. But this is something that's been stuck in my throat for a while, and I want to see where the community stands on this.

I took a long break from CM, but when I stopped we were about to dive into our current LV-624 ground map. There were new guns, overwatch, etc, etc. That was about... I think August. So, if my math is correct, four months back. Since then, I can see that we got a few new aliens, a prison map, perhaps we got some new weapon modifications, but honestly, who cares? What I DON'T see is anything new related with THE FREAKING STORYTELLING.

Right. Operating on non-sedated marines will give you a high failure chance (patient twitches and you cut them in the wrong place, sort of thing), and that's an advance. Gives me an actual reason, instead of just plain RP, to use anesthetics. But I don't see side-missions related to whatever the fuck was going in on LV-624 before the alien shit broke loose. I don't know, stuff like "this one survivor, or their clonable body, is particularly important, retrieve 'im", "get these research papers back", or randomized cool items spawning around to give me a reason to explore Lazarus' facilities.

Marines don't even have a fucking clear objective defined; sure, everyone more or less says, in briefing, stuff like "get the survivors", "restore power", "find out what happened", but fuck if I care after doing the same thing a hundred times. We all know that it's all going to boil down to shooting aliens and not getting facehugged.

I wish that there was something else to keep marines and aliens engaged, something that didn't involve killing each other, something, e.g., with a strategic importance to WY.

I'll leave just a couple of ideas I had in a five-minute period. I'm sure you guys can think of other ways to spice up the round, but now I really gotta go. Fear not, though, for I'll be back.

► Show Spoiler

There was this very important researcher in Nostromo. We want him, and we want him alive. He was so important that he's implanted with loyalty and tracking implants. The tracker has been beamed into the liaison's locker. Send the researcher back to us, and we'll grant you a shitton of supply points and perhaps a commando[who will be the VIP]/commando team[which will also include observers].
Also the researcher was geneticist working on... Genetics. If you find him, we may just release one or two DNA injectors for you to test. Ever wanted x-ray vision? But beware: radiation is dangerous.

Yes, it appears that we have left a flash driver containing very important information somewhere. Here's a special pinpointer that will track its frequency. Find that flash driver, send it to us.
Wait, what? It's inside an alien? Are you telling me that an alien devoured an officer who tried to secure that driver? God... Just... Just open the alien and send the driver to us. Before it's digested.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

Apperently we may or may not be working on a soultion to this probelm but it really comes down to the devs.

We can actually have this if the admins make an event but the time needed to prepare would be a lot with the preperation as well as counting if they failed to do the story event or not.

We have the ability to do this but not enough time to prepare for all this.

[Wickedtemp]

Most of the player base just wants to play an SS13 version of "Call of Duty: Aliens". They don't care about RP, they laugh at those who DO play for RP. This is one reason why.

[TheSlumberingKing]

I feel you on this. You know what WE as a community can do? Increase our standard of RP. Everything you're saying can be started with the CO, you know? I'm going to main CO for the next couple of days and give the marines some good RP missions! Make sure to look for Xavier King, you see Xavier King as a CO? Expect a different type of briefing where I'll give some RP objectives.

PROs
You get a more in-depth feel to our 1h+ rounds
Maybe I as CO can think of good rewards?

CONs
We all know how Marines are, they probably wont accept this well
Might be a longer briefing?

What are ya'll thoughts of taking matters into our own hands until the guys upstairs get to it?

[Feweh]

Not gonna lie, developement has slowed to a crawl since Abby took a break. Weve had mapping and sprites added but nothing concrete or real juicy added in a long time.

[TheSlumberingKing]

Most of the player base just wants to play an SS13 version of "Call of Duty: Aliens". They don't care about RP, they laugh at those who DO play for RP. This is one reason why.

There are people who enjoy RPing in this Riddley Scott universe. That's all we care about in these matters. Our own RP development.

[Arachnidnexus]

There's a big focus on the marine side on being robust vs RP'ing, and on the xeno side there aren't that many opportunities for RP. Without objectives it also gets really tiring to RP the exact same things to be honest.

[Varnock]

I remember back on Nostromo I'd see the whole 'The hell is this resin shit' almost every game start when we first shipped down, but now we don't even get that most of the time, Just people sprinting past the bodies to set up fob or power. Or rambo, since that happens a lot still...

I know I'd sure love something like some mini-objectives, but I play Doc most of the time now anyways. On that same line of conversation though, I think people on the Sulaco need more to do as well. Even as a Doc I end up sitting around a lot between bursts of marines coming back.

[Lostmixup]

Any RP that does happen boils down to "omg he took something from me, better shot him" despite the fact that realistically you wouldn't shoot someone for that. People just don't think of unique ways to solve problems through RP that don't involve killing.

[SkyeAuroline]

I have to agree wholeheartedly for a need for RP-related development. Varnock also raised a good point about the Sulaco roles; once everyone has deployed in the first 20-30 minutes, you don't have shit to do, especially if you're an MP or the Corporate Liaison.

This, honestly, should be the ONLY thing being worked on right now if we're so short staffed (from what I've been told, it's only Apophis on development staff). We've established a 50/50 win rate, and held it over the course of... what, a month? Great! Balance is where it theoretically should be! Let's try and not get any more pointless shit, and instead, get the roleplay part of "roleplay server" to actually mean anything.

[ZDashe]

I have to agree that more RP and objectives definitely make rounds fun, and not just for one party.

There was a round when I was CO, and I assigned multiple objectives for each squads (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie to establish a FOB, and Delta to recover the Corporate Jet Pod under CL's request). My BO organized some perimeter patrols for A/B/C while FOB is being worked on, and that was the early game. Then when FOB was relatively secure and survivors were evaced, the admins decided to play along and issue a mid-round objective/event when some crash-landed survivors spawned in at the dropship wreckage across the river. That gave the squads a follow-up search and rescue mission, which in turn led to the discovery of the alien hive, and that resulted in the late game story where marines formed up for a major assault.

Almost all marine roles were deeply engaged. You have the CL with their Weyu request to secure assets, the MPs busy with dealing the evaced survivors and random rogue marines, Medical screening the evaced survivors and facehugged marines, RO getting requests in mid-game for resupply, SLs frantically reorganizing their squads when each objectives have been met etc.

However, that round was understaffed in some departments: ROs, BOs, CEs, MTs. So it didn't realize it's full potential, and most of the time it became hectic for the command staff. As CO, I had to man Requisitions, and my sole BO was on the bridge manning all squads and OB strike requests.. Hardly any time for RP opportunities for Command, other than marines reporting to bridge and complaining about their lost comrades (I had to quickly dismiss them because too busy).

TLDR; +1 for objective driven gameplay, +1 for events that engage multiple roles, +5 for full RP-engagement IF the ship crew can be fully staffed.

[AssassinT90]

Apperently we may or may not be working on a soultion to this probelm but it really comes down to the devs.

We can actually have this if the admins make an event but the time needed to prepare would be a lot with the preperation as well as counting if they failed to do the story event or not.

We have the ability to do this but not enough time to prepare for all this.

I think this is exactly what I want NOT to happen.

Don't take me wrong, admin-driven events are can be fun and keep you engaged, but eleven times out of ten admins will have something else to do, like answering ahelps and stuff. They shouldn't have to step in to make the round fun, that's something that should be hardcoded into the server.

[apophis775]

This will be a quick rant 'cause I got a bus to catch soon and I'm not even done packing up yet. But this is something that's been stuck in my throat for a while, and I want to see where the community stands on this.

I took a long break from CM, but when I stopped we were about to dive into our current LV-624 ground map. There were new guns, overwatch, etc, etc. That was about... I think August. So, if my math is correct, four months back. Since then, I can see that we got a few new aliens, a prison map, perhaps we got some new weapon modifications, but honestly, who cares? What I DON'T see is anything new related with THE FREAKING STORYTELLING.

Right. Operating on non-sedated marines will give you a high failure chance (patient twitches and you cut them in the wrong place, sort of thing), and that's an advance. Gives me an actual reason, instead of just plain RP, to use anesthetics. But I don't see side-missions related to whatever the fuck was going in on LV-624 before the alien shit broke loose. I don't know, stuff like "this one survivor, or their clonable body, is particularly important, retrieve 'im", "get these research papers back", or randomized cool items spawning around to give me a reason to explore Lazarus' facilities.

Marines don't even have a fucking clear objective defined; sure, everyone more or less says, in briefing, stuff like "get the survivors", "restore power", "find out what happened", but fuck if I care after doing the same thing a hundred times. We all know that it's all going to boil down to shooting aliens and not getting facehugged.

I wish that there was something else to keep marines and aliens engaged, something that didn't involve killing each other, something, e.g., with a strategic importance to WY.

I'll leave just a couple of ideas I had in a five-minute period. I'm sure you guys can think of other ways to spice up the round, but now I really gotta go. Fear not, though, for I'll be back.

► Show Spoiler

There was this very important researcher in Nostromo. We want him, and we want him alive. He was so important that he's implanted with loyalty and tracking implants. The tracker has been beamed into the liaison's locker. Send the researcher back to us, and we'll grant you a shitton of supply points and perhaps a commando[who will be the VIP]/commando team[which will also include observers].
Also the researcher was geneticist working on... Genetics. If you find him, we may just release one or two DNA injectors for you to test. Ever wanted x-ray vision? But beware: radiation is dangerous.

Yes, it appears that we have left a flash driver containing very important information somewhere. Here's a special pinpointer that will track its frequency. Find that flash driver, send it to us.
Wait, what? It's inside an alien? Are you telling me that an alien devoured an officer who tried to secure that driver? God... Just... Just open the alien and send the driver to us. Before it's digested.

I'm sorry that the free game I produce and provide for free in my limited spare time isn't up to your high standard. Feel free to go buy your own VPS server, spend 6 months assembling a team and coding a shit-ton of stuff (from scratch since Bay fucked up the aliens in the version we use), and then trying to build and run a community all in your spare time for no financial gain. I typically try to avoid the "it's a free game deal with it" mentality because I DO have a standard, but honestly people like you piss me the fuck off. You have NO IDEA the work we've put into this game and how we've brought it from where it was to where it is now. I'm not asking people to bow before me or revere me as some sort of programming god or master. I'm asking people to enjoy the game and understand that we do this FOR FREE in our FREE TIME.

You don't "see" it, but the aliens we have here are 100% new functional aliens we coded from scratch. We've rebuilt the sulaco, I've heavily modified for the medical systems work, we've got orbital beacons and a bunch of fancy weapons/armor (not to mention, the entire specialist class equipment and the sentry turret). We built a map-system FROM SCRATCH BECAUSE BAY DOESN'T SUPPORT MULTIPLE MAP CHANGES WITH THE SERVER RUNNING.

So you, can fuck off with your "rant" about how the free-game you play in your free-time that takes most of my free-time up isn't up to your standard.

You sir, are an ungrateful fuck.

[Infernus]

We have a project under way to make the new map more RP oriented and give support for side missions. The only problem is the proc limit as there are many papers, blogs and research data (They use a lot of procs...) required to make the story.

[AssassinT90]

I'm sorry that the free game I produce and provide for free in my limited spare time isn't up to your high standard. Feel free to go buy your own VPS server, spend 6 months assembling a team and coding a shit-ton of stuff (from scratch since Bay fucked up the aliens in the version we use), and then trying to build and run a community all in your spare time for no financial gain. I typically try to avoid the "it's a free game deal with it" mentality because I DO have a standard, but honestly people like you piss me the fuck off. You have NO IDEA the work we've put into this game and how we've brought it from where it was to where it is now. I'm not asking people to bow before me or revere me as some sort of programming god or master. I'm asking people to enjoy the game and understand that we do this FOR FREE in our FREE TIME.

You don't "see" it, but the aliens we have here are 100% new functional aliens we coded from scratch. We've rebuilt the sulaco, I've heavily modified for the medical systems work, we've got orbital beacons and a bunch of fancy weapons/armor (not to mention, the entire specialist class equipment and the sentry turret). We built a map-system FROM SCRATCH BECAUSE BAY DOESN'T SUPPORT MULTIPLE MAP CHANGES WITH THE SERVER RUNNING.

So you, can fuck off with your "rant" about how the free-game you play in your free-time that takes most of my free-time up isn't up to your standard.

You sir, are an ungrateful fuck.

And as I said, that's quite a lot of limited resources thrown into giving us some cool weapons and a blast, all while new RP guidelines are handcrafted and pushed onto players.

It's not a matter of getting an army of people to work into the code, apophis, it's a matter of redirecting the resources you currently have into an area that din't receive the attention it deserves; that would be the RP aspect of CM that you yourself seem so interested in [1], [2], [3].

And no, I never said the game isn't up to my standards; I play it daily, so how could I think so? But THERE ARE things that can and should get better. It always can get better. The whole point of this topic was bringing it to your attention that it might be time to shift focus from cool guns and explosions to storytelling.

Like this:

We have a project under way to make the new map more RP oriented and give support for side missions. The only problem is the proc limit as there are many papers, blogs and research data (They use a lot of procs...) required to make the story.

[apophis775]

Yes, we do have a project underway. But in the time since that project started, we've released 3 maps, gone to alpha, remapped the sulaco, remapped security, and build a map rotation system from scratch. They are producing good lore stuff, but all of it still needs coding, and the more we code, the bigger the downloads get and the more time it takes to start the round, plus, there's the Proc limit and they have some fancy-thing they are planning to do with computers and "logs".


There are a LOT of design and function decisions I make purely because it doesn't fit, or the effort is too much greater than the gain (is it worth it for me to code something for 3-4 hours just so that one or two marines can do one specific thing one time?)


If you were a donor (donors have read access to the Dev forum) you'd see that we do have stuff incoming, and that I've got about 20-30 items on my to-do list. Ask a donor about all the stuff I've got on the Dev forum ranging from new game mode descriptions, to plans for the remap of the Sulaco, and a rework of the wiki. The problem, is that all of this stuff TAKES TIME, and I am a teacher and recently got another job (there will be an announcement soon), which takes up a fair amount of my time.


The RP guidelines are going to be LIVE on Janurary 1stish, alongside a new ruleset and updated Job descriptions/requirements which will all be on the wiki.

[Pillow]

This really just seems like a rant, it takes quite the work to do what amazing stuff is already being done.

[apophis775]

Is is a rant. And I HATE when people rant like this. It's not constructive and does nothing to help the server. It's just self-entitled know-it-alls thinking "I can do better". You want shit to get done? Make it a suggestion.