[Stickymayhem] Fire is not an event

[Retrokinesis]

Byond account and character name: Retrokinesis - Mackenzie Stafford/any and all space carp
Admin: Stickymayhem
Time incident occurred: Roughly 12:10 AM, Wednesday May 6th
Detailed summary: This was another "pray for fun" event. CentComm announced a diplomatic envoy of plasmamen was coming to the station and that it was customary for them to fill the halls with plasma as a "gift". I put my internals on and continued making donk pocket sandwiches. To absolutely no one's surprise, one of the diplomats ignited the plasma and was killed. This quickly spiraled out of control, with the captain ordering the crew to be armed and the plasmamen declaring a blood feud for their own actions.

I ran out of donk pockets at this point (the virologist also wanted them for some reason) and half the halls were on fire, so I grabbed a firesuit from maintenance and wandered around a bit. The HoS tossed me an energy gun and said she was going to hand-out weapons in the bar. As I was walking back, there was an explosion near the bridge and a bunch of fire-themed Gygaxes warped in. They immediately began firing clusterbangs and incendiary rounds everywhere. I was shot a few times and Beepsky stunned me for illegal weapon possession before I could fire back, but the Gygaxes apparently got bored and left. I was pretty banged-up so I broke into chemistry and grabbed the synthflesh patches to heal myself. A Gygax arrived and grenaded/shot me as I was climbing over the table, so I started to disposal myself. It phased through the wall (oh) and punched me to death.

This was not an event. This was admins burning the station down and then giving themselves deathsquad-level mechs to murderbone the entire crew in "retaliation". I know Sticky is never serious and that absolutely nothing will come of this complaint, but I'm making it anyway because someone has to. Killing your adminspawned special snowflakes is not grounds for pseudo-deathsquad, and calling it an event is laughable.

[Stickymayhem]

There was one participating trialmin in the event. He was among the first few people who prayed, and it's really unfair that just because someone has taken the time and effort to help the game run smoothly that they are now banned from ever participating in other events.

There is no rule regarding this because admins watch out for misbehaviour for each other and this rarely occurs. Admins rarely do this mainly to prevent complaints such as this cropping up but honestly admins deserve to just be players sometimes. I didn't involve myself in the event, and that would be wear concerns should crop up unless it's purely a necessary RP role.

As for the event itself. It was controversial and I get that. I know I tend not to be serious and I was messing around in OOC but I will be now.

Plasmamen are a neat new thing, purely just a nice addition to the game to play with. Everytime they've been sent to the station they've been brutally murdered before anything remotely interesting can happen. People get their valids and move on and it's a shame. So yeah I set an IC example. Someone threw a vote afterwards, and a narrow majority enjoyed it so it wasn't wholly terrible. I'm sorry you didn't have fun, I threw some new toys in the sandbox and it didn't go perfectly. It was meant to be a quick little thing and it was.

I take full responsibility for giving a trialmin a player part in the event. I am entirely convinced this is fine. It happens extremely rarely and they had the same chance of entry as anyone else.

[onleavedontatme]

I don't mind the poorly thought out event so much as that the same admin team tells us that we're a roleplay server and to stop validhunting. I guess they're not all one person though so whatever. I'm sure as hell not getting invested in serious projects or RP if teleporting mechs can show up and kill people at any time though. If we're gonna be a whacky everyone dies server we should embrace it all the way (sticky change the runspeed back so the rounds are faster)

I also don't really object to antags being spawned (it made IC sense in this case) but I wish they'd be rebalanced codewise so that the crew can actually kill them. Or at least have Centcomm send extra supplies for the crew to fight with. Deathsquad stuff isn't really much fun because you can't fight back at all, they're more or less immortal.

[Konork]

I also don't really object to antags being spawned (it made IC sense in this case) but I wish they'd be rebalanced codewise so that the crew can actually kill them. Or at least have Centcomm send extra supplies for the crew to fight with. Deathsquad stuff isn't really much fun because you can't fight back at all, they're more or less immortal.

I'm pretty sure most of the high-powered spawn-only "antags" are supposed to be kind of like the chasing monsters from various survival horror games, like Pyramid Head. You don't fight them, you fucking run until you can get into a good enough position to actually kill them, and sometimes you never even get into that position. Besides, IC, the Deathsquad is pretty much for high-risk situations where a single target getting through could just restart the whole situation in some other place.

[onleavedontatme]

I also don't really object to antags being spawned (it made IC sense in this case) but I wish they'd be rebalanced codewise so that the crew can actually kill them. Or at least have Centcomm send extra supplies for the crew to fight with. Deathsquad stuff isn't really much fun because you can't fight back at all, they're more or less immortal.

I'm pretty sure most of the high-powered spawn-only "antags" are supposed to be kind of like the chasing monsters from various survival horror games, like Pyramid Head. You don't fight them, you fucking run until you can get into a good enough position to actually kill them, and sometimes you never even get into that position. Besides, IC, the Deathsquad is pretty much for high-risk situations where a single target getting through could just restart the whole situation in some other place.

You cant really run from most of them either as they can teleport/see through walls/move faster than you etc

[Scones]

I also don't really object to antags being spawned (it made IC sense in this case) but I wish they'd be rebalanced codewise so that the crew can actually kill them. Or at least have Centcomm send extra supplies for the crew to fight with. Deathsquad stuff isn't really much fun because you can't fight back at all, they're more or less immortal.

I'm pretty sure most of the high-powered spawn-only "antags" are supposed to be kind of like the chasing monsters from various survival horror games, like Pyramid Head. You don't fight them, you fucking run until you can get into a good enough position to actually kill them, and sometimes you never even get into that position. Besides, IC, the Deathsquad is pretty much for high-risk situations where a single target getting through could just restart the whole situation in some other place.

This sentiment from Kor has been mirrored several other places, and while I don't agree, I think that truly round-ending overpowered antags should not be spawned unless they are, in fact, intended to directly end the round. Like, minutes until the shuttle docks - Nobody likes flying around as a ghost for 10 minutes because they caught a wayward pulse blast spammed down a hallway.

Blatantly overpowered admin antagonists are lame. I've made them before and I think I've gotten enough pushback to realize that making things interesting for both sides is really important. Conversely, I think it's important for people to realize... Maybe you're not supposed to always be able to win, or to kill the big bad monster. Maybe you can hope to delay it.

Sadly a lot of people don't seem to understand it and not being able to stunprod toolbox the event's BBEG is a major issue in some eyes.

[onleavedontatme]

Because once you're not able to toolbox the bbeg it means the game is more or less over, there is no more interaction between players or any struggle. Its just one person clicking on the others until the round is over.

And from a story standpoint I'm a sucker for the underdog and the last stand. One of my favorite moments from tabletop 40k was when I was massacring an IG army with my Chaos Daemons and had just killed both his commisar and enginseer (along with pretty much everyone else). By some miracle both of them rolled a 6 and staggered back to their feet courtesy of their bionic parts and sheer willpower. Two ordinary humans, who should by all rights by dead, surrounded by swarms of incomprehensible horrors. They charged my armies commander, who promptly cut one of them down only to be killed by the powerfist of the other.

It didnt change the outcome of the game, and they both died in the end, but the regular guy beating the odds and spitting in the eye of death, or even snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, is much more exciting that "these guys cant be hurt and they're supposed to win"

I mean do you remember the nuke round where the ops boarded and shot everyone, or the nuke round where Lacon/you took them all out with nothing but a crappy baton?

I don't mind losing or getting killed, I mind all control of the situation being taken away and the outcome predetermined.

[TechnoAlchemist]

I personally enjoyed barricading myself in cargo and then hopelessly trying to fight against a mech as it broke through our barricades and incinerated us. Felt actually desperate and stuff. However I guess I understand the backlash against the administration for this because a lot of people aren't okay with dying for not hiding.

I think "hiding from scary Murderers" isn't really in people's minds on this server, people in non-armed rolls expect to be able to kill their enemies and when they can't they get upset. I get it though, all the game modes give the average person a chance to be a hero, and it's bred a sort of expectation.

[Scones]

I mean do you remember the nuke round where the ops boarded and shot everyone, or the nuke round where Lacon/you took them all out with nothing but a crappy baton?

Four and their borg.

I do see your point, though, and I think underdog victories are really fun. I've seen people self-detonate, or borgs bodyblock to give the the Captain that one last moment to grab his gun. I think this is less of a policy thing and more of just something admins should take into consideration (Beyond the context of "THIS IS SUPPOSED TO WIN" which there is consensus on in that it is shit). I, personally, have learned a lot about what makes a good/bad event and hopefully it's just knowledge that gets passed along.

I guess another good example of crazy underdog victories would be when someone unarmed and innocent comes up against the bloodstained murderboner antag and wins via a shove with deadchat cheering them on. I love those moments.

[Erisian]

Because once you're not able to toolbox the bbeg it means the game is more or less over, there is no more interaction between players or any struggle. Its just one person clicking on the others until the round is over.

And from a story standpoint I'm a sucker for the underdog and the last stand. One of my favorite moments from tabletop 40k was when I was massacring an IG army with my Chaos Daemons and had just killed both his commisar and enginseer (along with pretty much everyone else). By some miracle both of them rolled a 6 and staggered back to their feet courtesy of their bionic parts and sheer willpower. Two ordinary humans, who should by all rights by dead, surrounded by swarms of incomprehensible horrors. They charged my armies commander, who promptly cut one of them down only to be killed by the powerfist of the other.

It didnt change the outcome of the game, and they both died in the end, but the regular guy beating the odds and spitting in the eye of death, or even snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, is much more exciting that "these guys cant be hurt and they're supposed to win"

I mean do you remember the nuke round where the ops boarded and shot everyone, or the nuke round where Lacon/you took them all out with nothing but a crappy baton?

I don't mind losing or getting killed, I mind all control of the situation being taken away and the outcome predetermined.

I agree with this sentiment entirely. I subscribe to the "losing is fun" motto, and get that you can't always win. It just seems like most admins tend to spawn in that shit to kill people and destroy stuff and not actually make the round fun for everybody. It's far more interesting when there's some kind of odds to fight back. Even if I get blown away, smacking that huge mech with that fire extinguisher maybe lowered it just enough for someone to come along and destroy it. Maybe I run off and hide, meeting other survivors and we try to figure a way out and to survive the chaos. It makes for a more dramatic and tense situation. Because by the choices you make you can either come out and win, or make your last stand like a hero.

You win some, you lose some. But it really shouldn't just be "lol admin event ur ded no restrt". Don't get me wrong, there's admins who do this kind of thing, because I've had events happen like this. Where even the guys in deadchat were having fun and not just bitching because they feel like they got cheated out of a fair chance to participate. It just seems to be pretty rare these days.


Edit: Speaking of which, whatever happened to subtle/creepy admin events? Seems that's stopped and every one of them is going in guns blazing. There's room for slower paced events too, ya know. Ones that slowly build up tension and last for awhile. Not every event even has to be this outbreak of utter chaos every single time. Mix it up, experiment a little bit. Be more creative with the events too.

[callanrockslol]

le/creepy admin events? Seems that's stopped and every one of them is going in guns blazing. There's room for slower paced events too, ya know. Ones that slowly build up tension and last for awhile. Not every event even has to be this outbreak of utter chaos every single time. Mix it up, experiment a little bit. Be more creative with the events too.

Events like that are actual events instead of "Mechs fall everyone dies", it requires time to set up and if you do it on a round that isn't extended congrats you just got bitched at for ruining greentext. Same with plasmamen, suddenly the station is fire because lol plasmamen. Don't blame the crew for lynching plasmamen because they burnt half the station.

You want to know an infinitely better event? Waterstation, that was fun. That event was basically some pirates spawned in escape on a crashed shuttle and space being filled with water.


Mechs in general make for terrible events because they only have one real counter and absolutely wreck everything that lacks them. Especially if they can stun on hit, set things on fire, run faster than crewmembers and walk through walls because raisins.

[TheNightingale]

Waterstation was one of the best events I've ever been in. Even the walls were edited to look wooden.

[peoplearestrange]

You want to know an infinitely better event? Waterstation, that was fun. That event was basically some pirates spawned in escape on a crashed shuttle and space being filled with water.

This was a Stick/PAS production, and you know what. Even though a lot of people enjoyed that we still had a few loud voices screaming that it was unfair that they died, either to a shark, or just bad luck of being where the pirate shuttle crashed through.

Personally I feel people have developed a real stigma to dying or not being OK with sometimes not being able to win. I'd suggest that this maybe considering with the "play to win" (or powergaming) style that seems to have started bubbling out of somewhere.

[lumipharon]

There's a difference between being upset about dying, and being upset about dying due to a reason completely out of your control, out of the normal round's control, and due solely to an admin pressing a button and spawning a pile of murderboning mechs.

[Alex Crimson]

Im not entirely sure what people expected from that event. Sticky spawned plasmamen and gave them a ton of plasma canisters and they were walking around with Flamethrowers. Its a recipe for grief. From what i saw the plasmamen are the ones who started the fire in the first place, even if it was accidental. The crew react how you would expect them to when aliens torch your station. Then sticky felt the need to spawn 4-5 mechs that are on the level of a Dark Gygax and tell them to wipe out the crew.

I fail to see how that is a good event, and i fail to see how plasmamen are going to be used for anything but griefing.

[ThatSlyFox]

The captain declared war on the plasma men. Which lead to the superpower might of the plasma men nation invading.

Most people complaining about this event are the ones who died for one reason or another. What they don't realize is that ss13 revolves around death. If you don't like dying then play another game. I was one of the plasma men that came in, I was arrested and killed by the HoS. You don't see me complaining.

[Alex Crimson]

The captain did that because the plasmamen started the fire and burned down half the station.

[Erisian]

The captain declared war on the plasma men. Which lead to the superpower might of the plasma men nation invading.

Most people complaining about this event are the ones who died for one reason or another. What they don't realize is that ss13 revolves around death. If you don't like dying then play another game. I was one of the plasma men that came in, I was arrested and killed by the HoS. You don't see me complaining.

1. That happened after one of the plasma-men set fire to the station.

2. The "superpower might of the plasma men nation" was an admin spawning mechs to destroy people. Rather than letting the situation play out and leave it as the crew and plasmamen solving things, he went and added more fuel to the fire and gave them mechs the people had no hopes of even fighting against.

3. SS13 doesn't "revolve around death". It revolves around having fun. The antags set a conflict in motion and this gives people a reason to interact, be suspicious, etc. That's the game's conflict unless it's extended. Some portion of the crew are not what they seem and it's up to everyone else to find out who they are. This gives people room to roleplay, die, survive, and have a fun time as they weave a story out of the mess the station becomes. If people wanted a deathmatch, they'd go play Quake or Call of Duty. Those are strictly about dying/killing. SS13 has various backdrops and settings depending on server. Because it's a roleplaying game first and foremost. It was always meant to be one. I can even find the quote from the developer on SA if you feel that I'm just ascribing my own interpretation onto the game's initial purpose and the entire way in which it was set up.

And, while you may not be complaining, you're also one of the people who wields such power to do events. And an event should be judged based on what the people think of it. The main reason for events is to let everyone have fun, not just admins, their buddies, or the select few who happen to be chosen to be part of the event. When almost 50% of people did not enjoy it (according to the post game vote a narrow margin enjoyed it), it'd seem that a significant amount of people felt that it was not an enjoyable experience at all. So, this indicates that the event wasn't really good. And I'm sure there'd be a lot less people feeling that way if Sticky had just let the crew and plasmamen sort their own business out rather than him then further summoning in mechs the crew couldn't fight and was basically just a big "fuck you, you're dead".

Most people don't mind dying here. What makes them mad about dying is when their own sense of agency and decision making is taken away during that process. There's a difference between them trusting a guy who stabbed them in the back later, and an admin spawning in mechs they can't fight and just basically made a round that fucked the crew in the ass. So, yes, a slight margin enjoyed it. That's all fair and well. But given it was a slight margin it'd be much better to look into how to make the rounds more fun for all involved rather than just thinking that this is a totally great way to make events.

[onleavedontatme]

The captain declared war on the plasma men. Which lead to the superpower might of the plasma men nation invading.

Most people complaining about this event are the ones who died for one reason or another. What they don't realize is that ss13 revolves around death. If you don't like dying then play another game. I was one of the plasma men that came in, I was arrested and killed by the HoS. You don't see me complaining.

I was actually the sole station survivor and I still think it was poorly concieved. As Erisan said its about agency, not about winning or losing. If a player has zero chance to impact the game they may as well not be playing.

That is the beauty of ROBUST COMBAT is that even someone with their bare hands has a chance of beating the guy with the guy. Mechs and deathquad are both largely immune to stuns and damage though. Can't do shit about it.

And "I died as an active participant in the event" vs "I was trying to do my job and suddenly immortal teleporting mechs came and killed me" is very different

I know I've said it about a million times but it's ridiculous that admins will go on and on about how we need to stop validhunting and roleplay while they're hitting buttons that turn every round into a deathmatch.

Hell it's not even a deathmatch because "match" implies competition of some sort, not admins killing people

[Timbrewolf]

The Alien from the movie of the same name wouldn't be scary at all if the crewmembers could just beat the shit out of it with a crowbar.
Sometimes you need an antagonist to be OP in order for it to carry any kind of weight.

At the same time, the Alien movie wouldn't be any good if it was just a 10 minute clip of this monster hatching out of an egg and then running around the Nostromo hacking everyone to pieces in a rampage as quickly as possible.
A really cool setup for an antagonist is no good if the person behind the wheel isn't interested in making a cool event but just seeing how much chaos and destruction they can cause.

[peoplearestrange]

3. SS13 doesn't "revolve around death". It revolves around having fun. The antags set a conflict in motion and this gives people a reason to interact, be suspicious, etc. That's the game's conflict unless it's extended. Some portion of the crew are not what they seem and it's up to everyone else to find out who they are. This gives people room to roleplay, die, survive, and have a fun time as they weave a story out of the mess the station becomes. If people wanted a deathmatch, they'd go play Quake or Call of Duty. Those are strictly about dying/killing. SS13 has various backdrops and settings depending on server. Because it's a roleplaying game first and foremost. It was always meant to be one. I can even find the quote from the developer on SA if you feel that I'm just ascribing my own interpretation onto the game's initial purpose and the entire way in which it was set up.

You misunderstand what everyone is saying. Death or rather, fear of it, is what drives the game. Or to quote our servers fluff text "Space Station 13 is a paranoia-laden roleplaying game set against the backdrop of a nonsensical, metal death trap masquerading as a space station."
Death happens, and the possibility of death, which can mostly be permanet (for the round) makes it scarier, makes each life seem more valuable. Unlike the games that you mention where death means nothing and you run in over and over to die over and over.

But just because life is valuable in the game doesn't mean you won't die. One of the best "stories of awesome" I heard a while back involved the HoP and a bodyguard, who protected the HoP the whole round from a mad assortment of nuke ops and traitors. They managed to escape the station on a pod where the body guard, who had been a traitor all a long, esworded the HoP death. And reply to the traitors final remark of "Sorry" instead of the HoP going "OMFG BULLSHIT SO CLOSE TO THE END!", his final words were "It couldn't have been any otherway". Now that makes an epic moment.

And, while you may not be complaining, you're also one of the people who wields such power to do events. And an event should be judged based on what the people think of it.

Sly is still currently a Trail Admin, who really don't run events with out directly being helped from a full admin or trainer. Trail's also don't have access to any of the buttons. So its not really a fair thing to write them off as their opinion being invalid.


Also I have to say, this whole admin complaint seems more like feedback on an event that could have simply been either discussed in policy or left directly as feedback on the admins thread. Rather than it becoming an actual complaint that the admin has done something seriously wrong.

[Stickymayhem]

Yeah fair point.

Complaints should be for real abuse and not just "I didn't liiiiike it".

Yeah the event wasn't brilliant. Who cares. Are you really entitled and guaranteed to every single forty minutes of the game being utterly orgasmically glorious. This should really be admin feedback. Our threads are for posting opinions. "Ran a shit event" is valuable feedback, but its never going to be grounds for an admin ban or deadminning.

Can we stop pretending to be in a mental legal system and just be reasonable with common sense. "Ayyy mate this event was shite because we had no control" is entirely valid and shit I always listen to. I and most of the other admin take our feedback threads seriously and will act on that kind of thing.

[peoplearestrange]

I'm going to close this thread now, It's been discussed and it seems this is more just feedback on how to run events, rather than a genuine complaint of an admin abusing their power etc.