How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

[Falamazeer]

Bottom post of the previous page:

So I have been seeing a spike in metacom bans, and it got me thinking, Way back in the day I used to play this game with a bit of a herd, three active players, one router, we're all in different places now, and I am the only one who still plays, but we used to do quite a bit of goofing around together, and I was wondering what was still considered Kosher here.
Before I get started with possibly incriminating examples, I should say this was 3 and a half or more years ago, and we almost always ahelped ahead of sessions when we got started to explain the matching IPs, as far as I know none of us ever got banned or noted for our activities, so at the time, nobody minded, but on to the questions:

1. New player tutorials and suchlike, Are people actually expected to explain the mechanics of the game in game, or is it ok to just follow them about silently tinkering with things so long as it's harmless interactions?

2. Gimmicks, we used to occasionally run little minor gimmicks together, opening a tool storage shop together, joining as nudist colonists trying to convince the station to join us, oceans 11 style vault heist for all the space cash etc etc but we always played by a set of rules, Nobody gets ganged up on and killed or robbed, nobody teams up with an antag, everybody uses common sense to nullify our inherent advantage, no using outside knowledge to 'happen upon' a dropped ID badge/corpse of a friend, the question being, are obvious metacom gimmicks bad if nobody gets their round dunked by it? admittedly a leading question, but if used fairly, would this be ok?

3. Group projects, We never actually did this cause it was before such things were coded. but for example, if we wanted to make a gygax, and we got blessed by the rng gods in job selection and a group wanted to build this, would people be expected to pda around with eachother to get the job done, for example a scientist, miner, and roboticist all just scattering to gather supplies and such for the project, and meeting back up to make it happen, knowing what the project is ahead of the round.

4. Obviously sharing an IP paints your every action in a different light, and thus general acceptable levels of shitlering around become less acceptable, thus you're held to a higher standard because of it, Nobody wants to get double teamed and wrekt because of it, but if handled responsibly in general, why should one slip-up mean that only one person gets to be un-perma'd? If you earned a decent track record of not meta-comming to be a cock, do you get a little lee-way situationally, or is the "Only one account gets unblocked" policy carved in stone?

[Falamazeer]

There's really no room to wiggle here. Even if, for example, you ahelp to inform us you're mentoring a new player over a voice chat and you have no intention on revealing any IC information to them. Yes, we understand, and it doesn't matter. To protect the sanctity of the round all in-game information must be kept in-character.

that goes against pretty much everything said by anyone who wasn't a bystander so far.
Basically, we're back where we started before the thread, "Follow the letter of the law, fuck your convenience, and your fun, It's easier to apply the law with a hammer than a screwdriver so that's how we're doing it."

Well have fun sorting through the people who just do it anyways and don't get caught by following common sense practices. And nobody will feel bad for bending your unbendable policy because anyone who can get away with it isn't really being an asshole anyways, or they'd have been caught.

A sad day for progress.

[Cobby]

When you forget that this is a game, primarily played for fun, is the moment that you are out of touch.

This sentence needs to be printed out in big bold fucking letters in every gaming community on the face of the planet

[oranges]

if you're teaching your friend right, nobody will ever notice.

[Sweaterkittens]

What if there was an actual "Mentor" mode coded into the game, so metacomming for teaching wouldn't be an issue? MSO is right, teaching people to play the game in-game is the least effective method of doing so.


It wouldn't be hard to implement, I imagine. In the lobby, you could choose a new OOC option: "Mentor Player". It would give you a list of the current players (much like ooc/who), and you could select one. They would be given a message in big bold letters to which they can accept or decline. If they accept, on roundstart, you are effectively put into their body with them, sans controls. To put it another way, it would function like orbiting them as a ghost, but without the x-ray/nightvision/deadchat, but you'd also see window pop-ups for PDA/machines/etc. If they're blinded, injured, get night vision or are killed, you suffer the same effects on your screen. That way, you could freely look over their shoulder, or more likely chat with them over voice chat or in-game. That way you could "metacomm" freely, show your buddy (or perhaps a new player who asked for help in the previous round) the ropes without the risk and admin worry of cheating. There's no concern about "what they might be talking about", because it's still just a single player character with no outside information to be fed to them.

Admins might get a little pop-up letting them know that X Player is now mentoring Y Player. Perhaps you could highlight objects or they could see your cursor, but that might be a little over the top/hard to implement. In either case, it would eliminate any gray area for "I'm teaching them the game can we metacomm?", and potentially make the admins feel a little more comfortable.

[DemonFiren]

So basically pAI.

[Sweaterkittens]

So basically pAI.

Very similar, honestly. The important distinction is that you aren't two separate entities, you can't be separated and you see exactly the same thing. There's zero risk of any OOC communication causing any issues.

[Haevacht]

If admins are cooperative, the mentor can be spawned as a borer that only sticks with the student. Ability to take control and bonus healing chems!

[Cobby]

If admins are cooperative, the mentor can be spawned as a borer that only sticks with the student. Ability to take control and bonus healing chems!

I'd rather you metacomm as a different person, since having an invisible healing + reviving pocket medic who is your ooc friend is just as bad if not worse since you can't kill the borer but can kill a metacomm buddy.

[Copybass]

I dunno about you guys but every time I've taught someone through text and actual roleplay when I found out it was their first shift I've had a great time, especially seeing said player continuing to do what you taught them. Speech explaining every little thing or not interacting and encouraging that they actually at least put a bit of effort into being their character feels... Off. It feels like a player's being taught bad habits.