Event rounds need to be handled sensibly

[itsswagga]

A few minutes ago a round on Terry ended in which I rolled Blood Brother on Metastation. I was going to medbay to heal myself and lo-and-behold a zombie comes out of nowhere and kills me, turning me into a zombie, and now the crew is constantly killing me. Basically I'm round-removed now. This happened only 10 mins into the round, if I get gibbed by a guy who rolled wizard I accept that. But this was WalterMedron's adminbus. I complained about it in dchat and ahelp, and Walter said that "it was decided to be an event round". I don't remember what OOC looked like, so I don't know whether he announced it there (99% sure he didn't) but:

Disclaimer: This is not an admin complaint, but a thread about the poor event policy and lack of standards in regards to running events

• This was a highpop round on Metastation, players' favorite map -- Do not run roundending events like forcing zombies 10 mins in on maps the playerbase actually likes. If you must, force it on maps which admins force upon players like Birdshot/Northstar, since those are maps where players call shuttle ASAP anyway. Players have jobs and lives outside of SS13, when we log on we want to play SS13 not a cheap knockoff of Left 4 Dead.

• There should be a BIG announcement header in OOC before running these kind of events. At the very least, delay roundstart and say "Ok guys it's gonna be an event round" in bold. When I played on Paradise, before running a Nations event round, they'd ALWAYS announce it in huge font in OOC. Respect the players and their time. Maybe even hold a vote beforehand. Admins, Terry is not your playground to force an event "cuz i feel like it". What if we players DON'T feel like it? What if, after coming home from work, we want to relax with the actual SS13 game?

• ASK THE ANTAGS before spawning roundending crap like zombies. Antag rolls are treasured because they give the player more freedom. "B-But SS13 isn't all about being antag!" Ok so I presume you have antags turned off? I know SS13 isn't all about being antag, but when a player rolls antag fair and square, admins have NO RIGHT to cuck them by ending their round prematurely. This lack of regard for players' antag rolls is quite frankly a lack of respect for both the players and their time. I know there are people who spend 10 hours a day playing Terry, but the vast majority only have time for a round or two. If you are going to force something roundending so early on [10 minutes in!] then turn antags off beforehand.
  
  "B-but nukies and cult also end the round" Yeah but those are purely random, not admin forced.

• Please be a bit more creative: Zombies are not a very good mechanic, there's a reason why romerol is a progtot roundending item. I find it quite absurd that admins complain about lack of RP and then force one of the most NRP antags there is.

Again this is not a complaint about Walter, but in general, about the poor way events are handled. On Paradise they were very professional about it, they know that most players are there for SS13 and not an admin's wacky fantasy. I know that admins are not just jannies, that they are DMs, but [Admin > Game Panel > Create Mob > /mob/living/carbon/human/zombie > Spawn] This is extremely low effort stuff.

[BonChoi]

I feel like you'd be better off posting in their feedback thread tbh, also I feel that your exact "policy suggestions" aren't quite specific enough for people to pick up on.

[datorangebottle]

Antag rounds aren't sacred. Get over it.

[Jacquerel]

Writing "this isn't an admin complaint" doesn't make it not an admin complaint

[Higgin]

It's gotten out of hand. Too many people are incapable of making reasonable complaints about admin events and it's bordering on shitting up the entire process and complaint forum by bogging it down with pointless complaints that inevitably cannot lead to anything.

Admin events are not something you file an official complaint about. They weren't before, and I'm not sure how it started, but they shouldn't be now either. From now on they are getting trashed. I'm not saying bad events aren't a thing, but they are never really going to result in problems.

I'm sure this is going to upset plenty of people but you have the official event workshop thread here which would value your criticism and ideas, admin feedback for actual problems and singulo for bitching.

The majority of complaints have been almost entirely emotional, based on one shitty round. Normally people get pissed at RNG for killing them but if an admin touches a button suddenly there is a solid tangible person to be fucking furious at. A round is a couple hours long at most. If you can't handle not having spessmans exactly how you like it for two hours you need to chill out.

It's just really depressing when the admin complaint forum is nothing but bitching about events and all of the valid complaints float around on singulo forever unresolved because people are either paranoid that they will get black bagged by the admin conspiracy and stuffed in the back of the van or just prefer a place where their facts don't need verification.

Admins will still be held accountable for events, they just aren't going to be immediately deadminned for them like an admin complaint would call for. Admins are encouraged to push buttons. The game gets stale as fuck without them. There's a reason Bagil is desperate for admins all the time.

TL;DR: If you have a problem with an event, it no longer goes here. Use Event Workshop for critique and ideas, use admin feedback to talk about a specific admin's events, and use singulo to bitch. Remember you can also talk to any admin by adminhelping, finding an admin you trust and PMing them or in #supportbus.

Feel free to ask questions but this thread is obviously going to be heavily moderated.

this is the last word I'm aware of on complaints about events, and I'm not sure this isn't better suited to any specific admin's feedback threads.

I think these are better practices you're bringing up, but unless you're suggesting they carry the weight of policy, this isn't the place for them to go.

If you're proposing that these practices carry the weight of policy, i.e.
- not running events on certain maps
- putting up an announcement that buttons are being pressed
- asking antags in the round before pressing any buttons
- nor running certain types of events period

You need to both address the issues that made acomplaints over events invalid to begin with and then come out with a 'what exactly,' 'how' these things are going to be judged, and how they should fit into conduct expectations.

This isn't a policy thread if you're not here to do that.

Personally it's been my observation that
- the game does get one-note as fuck if you just rely on Dynamic and sit back from it - you find the bounds of the world a lot quicker than it's being developed for you to interact with in a perfectly self-contained way
- more formalized event and event complaint procedures in places that rely a Hell of a lot more on admin involvement tend to have a chilling effect on people being willing to do things at all
- some people like the spontaneity of not actually being told up front what they're going to get. there are very different levels of tolerance for ambiguity and having your expectations dashed ranging from Never And How Fucking Dare You to Let Me Be Surprised. it isn't just one type of server that collects those tendencies.
- people get a sense anyway for events and eventrunners they don't like, but even those people consider the best have stinkers in the mix - would you rather have people try and take honest, open feedback, or tell them to not do more than curate the bugs in regular Dynamic Antag Maybe There's A Gimmick Round 256789 at risk that anything they do might get litigated to Hell and back when they could be doing better?

I don't think these are even all bad suggestions. There's a valid criticism in there for any admin that you should be considerate of players when running events - the nature of the policy on the books is that events and buttons are to be pressed for the players and their overall better experience. There was just an upheld complaint about this.

There's also a lot of people who will complain to no end even if they lose to a perfectly "random" assignment. Having somebody to blame doesn't make the thing unfair. It also doesn't mean that it can't be made better - this would be a fine set of practices to revive the Event Workshop on if you wanted to move them there, imo.

[Cheshify]

Higgin kinda essayposted all my ideas but...

- Don't run events on metastation because it's the most loved map
No it's not. Look at the maptainer's many walls of people hating on every single map. All maps are simultaneously the best and worst because players are all individuals. Even if this was true, no. Admins are event runners, and trying to do fun things should always be encouraged

- Announce when events are happening
Sometimes? Sometimes you just get a really good idea because of the round state and sometimes you have a full narrative planned out and want to inform the crew. We can't make definitives because not every round is the same, not every event is the same.

- ask antags before doing events and then also some weird cuck stuff
Yeah sure, sometimes events are best if admins inform people, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes both antagonist and crew are victims of greater powers and the fun is finding how to continue to be an antagonist despite the overwhelming odds. Sometimes you die and that's also ok. Your antag roll is not the penultimate power, and RNG is not the determinant of fun.

- zombies bad
That's like, just your opinion man.

Anyways there is not much to make policy on here, this sounds like you want to make an admin complaint where you believe Walter went too far in eventing. Maybe this would serve better as constructive criticism on a feedback thread or maybe just talking to Waltermeldron and telling him how you feel in the discord.

[DrAmazing343]

+1 to antag rolls not being sacred; this is a game where almost anything could round-remove you, accidental or not.

Event rounds are not guaranteed to be a hit with every player, but to spice up one round out of however many the server runs. There's no real way to 100% guarantee everyone will enjoy it over a regular round, so admins are stuck with pressing the buttons they believe will be the most appropriate given their own experience and point of view. Announcing button presses beforehand, as well, is not always the way to lead into the best stories.

Someone from the round likely had a grand time, as zombies began to bash at their door, and they move a locker to the door to bolt it, frantically looking for a way out! Would this story have been as impactful to them if zombies were announced? Probably not. That isn't necessarily to say that all button presses should come as a surprise, just that it's at the admin's discretion and one way or another it will create a story.

I'm sorry you had a bad round, but this has no value in terms of a policy discussion at this time, in my opinion.

[conrad]

I feel like you'd be better off posting in their feedback thread tbh, also I feel that your exact "policy suggestions" aren't quite specific enough for people to pick up on.

^ this, right here.

Also you'd have had an easier time asking for a funny respawn from dying at 10 min rather than being mad at the admin.

[dragomagol]

Subjecting only certain maps to admin events because you personally don't find them fun to play on isn't a standard that any headmin will enforce, and I can say that with certainty.

As has been said already, your antag round is not sacred. As you say nukie and cult rounds are random, so too is this zombie event (unless it was done over and over, which would be a different issue).

And as for this being your method of unwinding after a long day: you need to accept that not every round will go your way. Sometimes you will just have a series of rounds that are simply not fun for you. That's the nature of the beast. If you want to vent about how you think zombies is low effort as an event, leave feedback.

[TheBibleMelts]

no

[Archie700]

I agree, he should have spammed wizards instead

[TheFinalPotato]

You aren't owed a "good" antag round, or even a round you find fun. Admins make better shit when they don't have to deal with tiptoeing around never possibly ruining anyone's round. They should do their best to make shit that's fun but sometimes you just fuckin lose.
Kick rocks.

[dendydoom]

hello,

we have no desire to change overarching policy on events from a single or handful of bad experiences.

it is sad when players don't have fun, but events are as much a part of the game as anything else. admins are encouraged to run events on both large and small scales to bring the world to life and create personalized and unique experiences for players.

they will not all be award winning masterpieces, but adding lots of red tape around events just scares admins off from experimenting with what is possible with the game, or even from doing events at all. as long as the event does not break admin conduct, then the admin is advised to use their best discretion when deciding to run events.

there is not much else policy-wise to address here, the majority of the post is feedback for a specific event. i encourage you to put this in the respective admin's feedback thread.

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