/tg/Station 13

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 2:00 pm**

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?

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 2:09 pm**

>and I was wondering what was still considered Kosher here.
The short answer here is absolutely zero*.
*As long as you aren't a blatantly obvious idiot about it, seriously someone WILL notice, and maybe half the metacomms bans are from other player's ahelps who saw people being stupidly obvious

All of the examples you listed are easily done through in-game communication.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 2:27 pm**

Coordinating jobs with friends pregame is fine.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 2:36 pm**

Saegrimr wrote: All of the examples you listed are easily done through in-game communication.

Point being, what makes it inherently better to go through the motions with a guy sitting ten feet from you, If it's a dick move you're still going to get banned whether you talked it out or not, and if it's not it's not, or at least it shouldn't right?
No amount of ingame chatter can excuse cocking up the round with your buddy, So why let the stigma of metacom in general affect policy for groups that can handle not being a massive shit?

Kor wrote:Coordinating jobs with friends pregame is fine.

How 'bout names? "Nudist colonist 243" "Nudist colonist 411" etc etc
*Edit: Or goals, like the gygax/tesla/whatever

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 2:49 pm**

Setting goals etc is fine as long as you reiterate them IC at the start and then work normally from there.

Coordinating your names is probably just going to get you scrutiny you don't want.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 3:01 pm**

Believe it or not, even the mildest of metagamers build up to catastrophically screw up rounds. This isn't just tgstation. This is the case with three different servers with three different player bases.

Helping new players is acceptable. A few players talked in OOC about a blonde female QM that taught them how to play. This is the only kind of meta relationship I've seen work out better for the server. It's also the only one I condone.

2; gimmicks. There was a round where a clown was named ONE and the mime was named TWO. Yeah their gimmick involved working together and completing eachothers gimmicks. Copped a ban for that when their meta relationship went too far.
The issue is breaking out of a relationship and temptations to help when your metabuddy shoots you a PM saying "hey man capt murdered me no reason wtf".

Look at it in the POV of another player; you're purposely alienating them from a part of the game, and if that player had to affect your game (kill, disrupt) they're gonna have to go through two people.

3; group projects. Absolutely not. There was a group of 3 players who were metafriends and experts in their own department. One mastered virology, one mastered science, one mastered genetics. They helped eachother out in group projects. This created an elitist group of genetic virology super humans with help from science every round until entire rounds were based around them.

Heaven forbid science miner MedBay. This is highly a unfair advantage and must be avoided at all times.

In short; do not coordinate jobs. If that's Kosher then I'll show you why it shouldn't be very quickly when unstoppable metafriends tear up the round every round.

4; I knew two brothers who tried their hardest to avoid meeting eachother to the point they didn't even help eachother ever. That was their only way of avoiding getting breathed down the neck.

Edit;what I mean by they didn't help eachother I literally mean he wouldn't clone him unless there wasn't medical doctors. He wouldn't even recover his body even if he found it accidentally.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 3:26 pm**

J_Madison wrote:
In short; do not coordinate jobs. If that's Kosher then I'll show you why it shouldn't be very quickly when unstoppable metafriends tear up the round every round.

Gonna go with a headmin on this one, not some schmuck.
and metafriends tearing up the round every round is still a dick move and bannable, obviously allowing coordination doesn't change that.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 3:39 pm**

I'm not too delighted to hear coordinating jobs is legal. I'm gonna wait for further headmin ruling.
That's fine if you don't want to believe me. I'm just offering my humble opinion from hosting one server and working with two other hosts from Hippiestation and one other.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 3:51 pm**

Jmad have you considered being a consultant, you're clearly very proud of your pedigree

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 4:11 pm**

Shaps wrote:Jmad have you considered being a consultant, you're clearly very proud of your pedigree

It's just things I pick up playing the game and thinking about it.
I'll apply for a position, but being reasonable my background would upset both player and admin.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 6:15 pm**

This thread is dumb. All metacomms are too much metacomms. You're all wrong.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:20 pm**

When you're in <chat client> with your friends talking about playing space together and you're all in the same round and it's fun just remember to not do anything not in the spirit of the game.

I mean honestly if you're doing things that aren't obvious nobody is going to catch you. Just make sure to have IC reasons for your actions that an admin would agree with and you'll be fine.

I mean hell, a lot of the admin team does/has done metacomms in the past with each other and I think they can agree it's fun and that banning for just the simple act of chatting about the round but not acting on your knowledge is dumb. It's like the same honor system of not using ghost knowledge in game.

Posted: **Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:08 pm**

TechnoAlchemist wrote: It's like the same honor system of not using ghost knowledge in game.

Never thought of it like that, but you do have a point.

Posted: **Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:44 am**

TechnoAlchemist wrote:When you're in <chat client> with your friends talking about playing space together and you're all in the same round and it's fun just remember to not do anything not in the spirit of the game.

I mean honestly if you're doing things that aren't obvious nobody is going to catch you. Just make sure to have IC reasons for your actions that an admin would agree with and you'll be fine.

I mean hell, a lot of the admin team does/has done metacomms in the past with each other and I think they can agree it's fun and that banning for just the simple act of chatting about the round but not acting on your knowledge is dumb. It's like the same honor system of not using ghost knowledge in game.

Techno, but still, It is dangerous to make exceptions, especially for something which is hard to track down and confirm. Sure, while just talking about the round and not acting on anything might be acceptable, most people simply wouldn't behave like that, or be happy just doing that

Posted: **Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:59 am**

Yeah well I'm not an admin so it's not a real exception, in just saying have fun and don't be an asshole/get caught and you'll be fine. Common sense will keep you from getting banned generally

Posted: **Sat Aug 06, 2016 9:27 am**

Honestly if you and your friends go do your your jobs, keep doing your jobs properly and don't validhunt/participate in antag activities, you're probably fine.

Posted: **Mon Aug 08, 2016 2:56 pm**

I'm in a Skype chat with Cuboos and a handful of other occasional players. We have a rule against speaking about ongoing rounds while they're ongoing. The skype chat is sort of our gaming guild for other games and roleplaying on Second Life.

But we do talk about SS13 quite a bit-- just not while we're playing.

Posted: **Wed Aug 10, 2016 1:14 am**

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?

Basically, the best way to do this is over their actual shoulder, or via voip with you being ghost, and not telling them about things they can't see (like the traitor about to bust into the room they are in from maint)

Helping them from ingame is actually the hardest way to show them the game, flat out.

Posted: **Wed Aug 10, 2016 6:01 am**

MSO, though they should Ahelp it then first. Many admins has said before, if they Ahelp that they are showing "playername" how to play the game, then its okay. It's a problem when they go behind the back of admins, because it creates a mess and its hard to prove it was just a tutorial.

Posted: **Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:25 am**

I get people ahelping this stuff occasionally "We're in the same room, can I teach my friend X job" and I always give them the go-ahead and a stern warning not to do so in any other circumstances. (and notes)

Posted: **Thu Aug 11, 2016 3:17 am**

Honestly, the whole "ahelp first" bit, is kinda lame.

And i was more speaking from a functionality perspective. It is much easier to show them the game when you aren't in it icly, you can orbit them, and even ooc tab->observe them to inherit their hud to see what they see.

It's better than trying to do it in game, and having to juggle not getting slipped by the clown while at the same time showing them how to take a fire extinguisher to the clowns face.

Posted: **Thu Aug 11, 2016 6:58 pm**

Just let people play the game. Metacomms are only bad if you have your dead buddy scouting out antags for you or are telling people where your dead body is. If your chums just want to run around as a team and fuck around, let them.

Posted: **Thu Aug 11, 2016 7:11 pm**

ShadowDimentio wrote:Just let people play the game. Metacomms are only bad if you have your dead buddy scouting out antags for you or are telling people where your dead body is. If your chums just want to run around as a team and fuck around, let them.

No you're wrong. You're so wrong. I'm about to lock this thread you're so wrong

Posted: **Fri Aug 12, 2016 6:51 pm**

MrStonedOne wrote:Honestly, the whole "ahelp first" bit, is kinda lame.

And i was more speaking from a functionality perspective. It is much easier to show them the game when you aren't in it icly, you can orbit them, and even ooc tab->observe them to inherit their hud to see what they see.

It's better than trying to do it in game, and having to juggle not getting slipped by the clown while at the same time showing them how to take a fire extinguisher to the clowns face.

The big issue with those kinds of things, is that with metacomms, we have absolutely NO idea what you're saying to the other person. Sure you might be helping them learn the game, or you might be giving them xray vision and the ability to hear everything that happens.
Sure it's easier to show them how to play via voice and observing them. It's also much easier to not keep quiet about the esword wielding clown on the other side of that airlock your friend is heading towards. That's really why metacomms bans are so harsh. We can't guarantee that you won't do it again, and we can't guarantee that we'll catch you if you do.

ShadowDimentio wrote:Just let people play the game. Metacomms are only bad if you have your dead buddy scouting out antags for you or are telling people where your dead body is. If your chums just want to run around as a team and fuck around, let them.

You are completely missing one of the core aspects of the game. Players don't have perfect communications in game. They could be mutetoxin'd, have their headset stripped, telecomms could be blown, etc. If you're speaking with people outside the game, it puts you at a huge advantage, as you can bypass all that.

Posted: **Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:48 pm**

If Metacomms is so awful then how is that different from using information you get as ghost? You get the same information you'd get with metacomms [and if you're getting cloned, with the new feature you can track them down all the way until you get back up]. Sure, it's not as accurate as someone directly feeding you information, but ruining someone's round with anything is still ruining someone's round, be it metacomms or ghost-knowledge.

People trying to virtue signal that they hate all forms of non-roleplay communication just seems silly when I don't even need to communicate to anyone to ruin the round in a similar fashion. Not to mention I can hop on a Ghost-Role and meta someone/something in that fashion. There's already a wide opportunity to ruin rounds for others without any external programs, or even a partner for that matter.

As long as people are acting with good intentions [such as teaching someone how to play the game], I don't really see the issue with it.

Gimmicks can easily be established ingame. You can even setup one in OOC prior by simply saying 'Rolling for Clown with Name of X'. Dunno why you really need metacomms for that.

Posted: **Sat Aug 13, 2016 3:04 am**

Literally zero tolerance.
"But he got away with <minor> thing, why am I getting banned for this <tad bit more severe> thing?"
"But he got away with <tad bit more severe thing>, why am I getting banned for this <more severe> thing?"
"But he got away with <this>, why do I get punished?"
Causes line-toeing tbh, it's why IC in OOC is not allowed even if it's 2 seconds untill round end.

Posted: **Sat Aug 13, 2016 4:30 am**

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:If Metacomms is so awful then how is that different from using information you get as ghost? You get the same information you'd get with metacomms [and if you're getting cloned, with the new feature you can track them down all the way until you get back up]. Sure, it's not as accurate as someone directly feeding you information, but ruining someone's round with anything is still ruining someone's round, be it metacomms or ghost-knowledge.

People trying to virtue signal that they hate all forms of non-roleplay communication just seems silly when I don't even need to communicate to anyone to ruin the round in a similar fashion. Not to mention I can hop on a Ghost-Role and meta someone/something in that fashion. There's already a wide opportunity to ruin rounds for others without any external programs, or even a partner for that matter.

As long as people are acting with good intentions [such as teaching someone how to play the game], I don't really see the issue with it.

Gimmicks can easily be established ingame. You can even setup one in OOC prior by simply saying 'Rolling for Clown with Name of X'. Dunno why you really need metacomms for that.

1. Metacomms =/= metagaming. It is entirely different to have someone for potential backup than having information that you should not have. Ghosting and getting info still requires you to, alone, act on that. Metacomms could eventually devolve into a two player team that has a better coordination than the rest of the crew, only rivaled by admins or another, bigger metacomm.

2. That's still you, alone, doing that. One man shitter is different from a 2 man shitter team. Healing is faster, attacking deals more damage. You can pull stuff off better with two people rather than just one.

3. Road to hell is paved with good intentions.

4. Role announcing in OOC can always be ruined by people trying to one up you, or just not rolling the role. Even if players agree to go on something, they're still limited to the ingame comm system. A clunky system that sometimes doesn't show messages is not the same as real time updated verbal info gained through teamspeak, or skype.

Posted: **Sat Aug 13, 2016 12:42 pm**

This thread is stupid. All metacomms are bad. It ruins 80% of the game. Metagaming is stupid and not allowed. These are all rules on the rule page. Nothing will come of this thread other than me banning you for saying "but me and my friemd were on skype".

Posted: **Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:40 pm**

I can say I've metacomms on TG before when I first joined but now when my friends want to play ss13 tg's the only place im not banned from (besides cm) as i just hated the admins everywhere and didn't care. Now I actively try not to get banned here.

But the few times I play with friends it always turns into them wanting to shit around and murder people. So I tell them in lobby to take same job. Then I'm usually babysitting them when they ask 'should i kill this doc I got a gun' or some stupid shit. It's never real metacom besides telling them what to not do.

But the times im showing friends ss13 for the first time im usually telling them how to do things (as doc which drug is for what, whats my job supposed to do, how do I do x with y.) They complain at first the game is clunky and too confusing but that metacom helps them learn the game. Personally when ahelping first to tell your teaching is the only metacom should be allowed imo.

Posted: **Sat Aug 13, 2016 9:23 pm**

ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:Gimmicks can easily be established ingame. You can even setup one in OOC prior by simply saying 'Rolling for Clown with Name of X'. Dunno why you really need metacomms for that.

Literally only jmad would consider talking to somebody before either of you are in-game or after both of you have left to be metacomms and that's because he is disgusted and confused in equal measure by the concept of friendship since it's so alien to him

Posted: **Sat Aug 13, 2016 10:08 pm**

IrishWristWatch0 wrote:This thread is stupid. All metacomms are bad. It ruins 80% of the game. Metagaming is stupid and not allowed. These are all rules on the rule page. Nothing will come of this thread other than me banning you for saying "but me and my friemd were on skype".

You totally failed to see the point of this thread.

What the word "metacoms" means to admins is massively different than what it means to a player, and this thread is about bridging that gap. showing contempt at a time when you can build understanding is counter productive.

What metacoms means to you is "any time players talk to other players out of game in a way that earns them a ban" what metacoms means to most players is just "Any time players talk to other players out of the game" players want to know where we draw the line, and asking that question isn't stupid.

Posted: **Sat Aug 13, 2016 11:55 pm**

Screemonster wrote:
ExcessiveCobblestone wrote:Gimmicks can easily be established ingame. You can even setup one in OOC prior by simply saying 'Rolling for Clown with Name of X'. Dunno why you really need metacomms for that.
Literally only jmad would consider talking to somebody before either of you are in-game or after both of you have left to be metacomms and that's because he is disgusted and confused in equal measure by the concept of friendship since it's so alien to him

No. It's because I've hosted a server and busted 4 metagangs.
Every one of them fucked with the round and other's experiences in some way. Even if their metacom was only "minor", it was a slippery slope and within 2 weeks of them being caught, they were already rescuing eachother from hidden closets.

Even the smallest vapid bullshit with OOC communications has spiralled. I'd be lying to say I haven't done this before, but the amount of difference it makes damages the experience of SS13.

Got a friend to casually walk by you and help you during an arrest? Congratulations the traitor has to kill 2 people to keep you dead.

Best part is when these metafriends and persistant relationships play jobs that they shouldn't do this kind of shit in.
Ever have a security officer stun and drag the guy you arrested because it's his buddy?*
Happened to me.

Metacoms or ridiculous relationships wouldn't be difficult to ruin rounds. You could easily get free access every round, have someone "accidentally" find your body, just happen to "be the guinea pig" or the right man in the right place for whatever advantage you're about to hand out.

Any admin looking for solid undeniable proof of metagaming (except IPs and CID matches) won't find it that easily. Unless you're part of the metagroup, you won't get a recording.
Unless it's blatent metacomms, people that metacomm will get their advantages and unless you know what you're doing, you absolutely will not catch them with solid evidence.

Sure they helped eachother 40 times this week, but they're friends with persistant relationships right?

* If you want details PM me.

Posted: **Sun Aug 14, 2016 10:05 am**

If you want nudes of J_Mad, pm me

Posted: **Sun Aug 14, 2016 11:50 am**

If you want oranges, PM me

Posted: **Mon Aug 15, 2016 12:29 pm**

If we're working by the definition of metacomms presented by both Jmad and IrishWristwatch then I am guilty as charged. I have indeed sent multiple messages of logs of things that I thought funny that happened to people that could be in the round or were out of the round. Was it """"METACOMMS""""? Yes, it is I guess if we're going to nitpick. But the thing is metacomms should never be banned unless done through malice. Because firstly, when I sent to someone that "Shitforbrains McHumphreys exclaimed, "I'm mentally retarded!"." through skype/steam/whatever that did not maliciously impact the round as if I was telling someone that "X has killed me and I have been put in a locker come get me out.". I think you people need to understand that at the end of the day this is a game. A social game at that, and social interactions are obviously going to happen outside the game, regardless of rules, regardless of intent. When you forget that this is a game, primarily played for fun, is the moment that you are out of touch. You have become far too involved in the game. Someone like Jmad arguing that metacomms can "catastrophically impact the round" is the exact thing I'm talking about. That is your opinion, and entirely so, due to you having no quantifiable basis to argue the fact that everyone thinks that its bad. If there is a traitor who is metacomming and killing everyone that could be for someone like yourself who wants to get that greentext a total failure state of the game. Unfortunately, or more in case, fortunately for yourself and myself that is not the case. Not everyone is Jmad, not everyone cares for greentext and I for one take more enjoyment over roleplaying and general character development, than playing robber/cop throughout the station. That is my opinion, that is yours. We both have to agree to disagree and compromise throughout this thing. The moment you begin hunting for non-malicious "metacomms" such as the one I just diverged that I participated in, is the moment that you ban a large majority of the population. I've confirmed that I do it, I'm not ashamed of it, and if you still think that I have broken the rules, and since there is no statue of limitation, then yes, I have broken the rules and you may ban me. But I have not impacted the game maliciously by doing so in any way, and the rules are only there to protect the game environment. To which I would like to think throughout my time playing on ss13 I have merely added to the game through my experiences playing.

I would like to remind you all that the first big metagroup at its inception had nothing wrong with it. It was even allowed by SoS due to the fact that original intent was merely to post logs of things that were happening in the round that they thought were funny. This idea, I guess, did degenerate and through the fact that majority of participants simply didn't care for the game anymore, they decided to take it to full blown metagaming. But the original intent was still completely fine, because once again, it didn't maliciously impact the game environment, which is something both Jmad and IWW simply don't seem to understand. This isn't black and white. Nothing in life is, don't be naive and don't simply rule out that something goes against the rules because you can't be bothered to use your head and think about it from both sides. Empathy is a very good trait that you should all learn.

Posted: **Mon Aug 15, 2016 4:00 pm**

> first big metagroup

Don't flatter yourself. There have been metagroups for as long as the server existed, and there were scandals around them and the admins in them back when I started playing in 2010. I'm sure similar stuff happened before I started playing.

Everything else you said is correct though. Every SS13 group I have ever been in, or been aware of, whether it's had current admins or not, has had people talk about the round to some degree. It's only when they start blatantly cheating that I care enough to tattle on them.

Posted: **Mon Aug 15, 2016 4:47 pm**

I mean yes, meta groups yes, but not as big to an extent that the old shinu one was.

That was huge amounts of people in skype.

Posted: **Tue Aug 16, 2016 8:39 pm**

ColonicAcid wrote:I mean yes, meta groups yes, but not as big to an extent that the old shinu one was.

That was huge amounts of people in skype.

Fairly sure Antons TS might have rivaled it.
METACOMMS ARE BAD!

Posted: **Tue Aug 16, 2016 8:46 pm**

ColonicAcid wrote: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

Posted: **Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:16 am**

Saegrimr wrote:>and I was wondering what was still considered Kosher here.
The short answer here is absolutely zero*.
*As long as you aren't a blatantly obvious idiot about it, seriously someone WILL notice, and maybe half the metacomms bans are from other player's ahelps who saw people being stupidly obvious

All of the examples you listed are easily done through in-game communication.

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.

Posted: **Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:21 am**

krus pls no necro why

Posted: **Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:37 am**

Saegrimr wrote:krus pls no necro why

gotta show people who's the new boss

Posted: **Mon Nov 07, 2016 2:55 am**

Krusvik wrote: 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.

Posted: **Mon Nov 07, 2016 4:59 am**

Screemonster wrote:
ColonicAcid wrote: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

Posted: **Mon Nov 07, 2016 12:24 pm**

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

Posted: **Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:18 am**

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.

Posted: **Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:44 am**

So basically pAI.

Posted: **Fri Dec 16, 2016 12:41 pm**

DemonFiren wrote: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.

Posted: **Fri Dec 16, 2016 2:37 pm**

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!

Posted: **Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:12 pm**

Haevacht wrote: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.

/tg/Station 13

How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?

Re: How much Metacom is too much Metacom?