by Wickedtemp » Mon Jul 02, 2018 7:32 pm
Alright, at a computer.
So, many events here tend to mirror game-modes on other servers. We'd sometimes even use antags from other game-modes for our event rounds. Generally, I feel like those usually went poorly. Many of the technomancer rounds ended up being nothing more than admin-abuse, where one would join, be a general nuisance and bait somebody into lashing out, then using that as an excuse to blow stuff up. Merc rounds in the past got a bit more bumpy than they were meant to as a result of an admin making a CC announcement to alert the station of the mercs presence before the mercs even docked, which meant their 'sneak attack' plan that they'd worked on was now pointless and they were being shot at before they even left their shuttle to board.
I know that some admins want to run events as if they're the game-master of a DnD campaign, they have a story they want to tell, things need to be done in a particular way, and if someone goes against that it isn't unusual for them to just get killed because "they did x when they were supposed to do y so they pretty much had it coming". The controls are taken out of players hands and instead, they're told "No, you can watch me play instead. It has to be done my way." often enough during events that it's become the expected route. Especially when the route is "No, you're meant to be powerless here."
Couple years back, we had this massive redspace event. General catastrophe, lots of dead crew, lots of wounded. Hostile mobs, broken lights, power was getting shut down, evac was called because nobody knew how to 'beat' the event. One character was supposed to be the protagonist and it kind of meant that nearly everybody else was just... a spectator at risk of dying. Evidently it was meant to be some type of weakness or objective that could be deduced by getting close to it, but honestly, when you're dealing with hostile mobs or patients or "oh god run away because I'm a civ", you're not going to notice that. It resulted in an evac, because the vast majority of the crew felt utterly helpless and that nothing they could do would turn the event in their favor.
Even in events that were literally game-modes, things were influenced by admins wanting more shooting or less shooting or wanting a particular ending, or simply by mistake. Why would I bother joining an event round when I know it's not going to be an 'event', rather, 'The Admins Playtime'. It only serves to drive home the point that what you do ingame doesn't matter. Yes, there are few cases where this type of thing is warranted, such as valid-hunting behavior or the crew wanting to evacuate because of a small handful of spiders, but for the most part, it isn't needed and it hampers gameplay. Look at how often Polaris/Bay admins need to directly influence the antagonists... The answer is "not really that often unless someone does a rulebreak". I know, different servers different playstyles, but honestly, leave this type of stuff up to the players.
Now, as for shadekin in particular? I'm not a fan of them, generally they just seem to be a nuisance, like Hero's mentioned. I'm not even that annoyed at people who act a bit hostile towards them, in a chase out of the room with a rake sort of way. Outright seeking them out to attack them is a different story hopefully covered by valid-hunting rules, but.. honestly? Every time one comes into Medical while I'm playing, I want nothing more than to throw it out, because I know chances are they're going to do very little that I can actually interact with outside of annoying actions like removing or breaking all of the lights. Personally, I wouldn't RP with them from a vore or erp standpoint because I'm just not attracted to them at all, so that leaves non erp interactions, which... so far has been limited to a few exchanged 'mlems' and 'shadekin removes all the lights, hisses at me when I put them back because keeping my entire department in the dark OOCly gets on my nerves and I'd rather they just leave, but I can't really do so without making Tempest the "bad guy". ' - And that isn't fun. I don't like it. I don't know why shadekin had to have an absurdly annoying trait become their defining behavior.
And... Iunno, it's like Technomancer-lite. You have a god-mode, cloaking, wall-phasing creature shrouded in mystery that shows up randomly, does whatever it wants, barely communicates, and attempting to stop it risks being attacked, and if you kill it after it attacks you, let's be honest, you're probably going to get killed, bwoinked, or in some way harassed until you feel like shit or leave the round. So it creates a "I'm not allowed to get in their way, else I'm punished for it." feeling, whether that punishment is simply being made out to be 'the bad guy' in that particular interaction, being harrassed by crew for daring to hurt a shadekin, being brigged, bwoinked and potentially banned, or the shadekins murder you. Every single interaction with a shadekin has been annoying. Every single one. I'm not a fan of their invisibility and wallphasing, not a fan of "fucks with the lights" as their defining behavior, I'm not really a fan of how they look from an ERP standpoint, the whole 'super rare and new and mysterious' bit could be neat if I was interested in them, but I'm not. Because usually, they tend to just be annoying.
In the future? Cut back on "This is the admins event. This is the admins plan. This is the way its going to be. It has to be done my way." and give players influence over how things go. This means removing the "And then Greyson Maximus shows up and saves the day in a Gorilla mech!" ((just an example, didn't actually happen)) and "Another event character kills the antagonist", let the crew handle it and actually make it something the crew is capable of handling. I'd personally change shadekin from "omg bad light bad light bad light, must break all lights, lights bad!" to "This is kind of uncomfortable but I'm not going to be a prick to people because I'm supposedly intelligent, which means I'd hopefully have manners and can infer that since the entire station is like this, these non-shadekins evidently are more comfortable around light."
As for what I like, well... there isn't anything I specifically like about shadekin. Events in general, sure. I like how they can provide a bit of action to the server. It's usually fun as Medical to actually have patients. It's fun to be able to do the job I signed up for, and I'm sure there are other medical and security players that feel the same way.