Adminbuse - How far?

[Arbon]

I’d say the important thing to keep in mind is make sure players have /something/ to do, don’t go out of your way to make it clear the player’s actions aren’t relevant, and don’t constantly make yourself above and beyond anything the other players could accomplish. If anyone can catch the DnD analogies, make sure the players are occupied with some task, don’t railroad things down a pre-determined path, and don’t godmode with a GMPC. Beyond that it’s all down to individual judgment calls on specific scenarios, taking into account what you know of the people involved and trying to balance convenience to immersion. We don’t want it to look like we are dealing with gods unless someone actually uses the pray feature and legitimately dealing with a god.

Putting all power to the station when there’s no engineers is a good example here as if there are engineers who would appreciate the work your just taking their job away, but if no one wants to be bothered setting the power then just press that button to ease our headaches. On the reverse, knocking out all the power or pressing that one button that blows all of the lights is annoying as squeak if you expect to just make a mess for people to clean up, or want to say “Oh! Enjoy the darkshift!” like I’ve seen before. One instance of this outright caused an argument and a player to leave, because she was CE at the time and the admin who blew the lights went to bed, then while everyone else was having fun late at night with a dark station another admin came on and demanded that all the lights be fixed. By hand. Before the shift ends. With about 5 people on, all of whom were perfectly situated …

Blowing all the lights so that a scary horror antagonist can sneak around snatching up prey people, that’s an event. That’s a cool scenario. That’s something more than just cleaning up a mess and probably going to be vore related. Just watch the flavor-text and things can work out fine.

But I get the feeling this is about Admin behavior in general and not just during events. Hmm … while it isn’t something I see often among our actual playerbase, elsewhere in other chats the biggest complaint I hear about Virgo admins is that they are “special snowflake” characters who try to be special and unique, setting up events to make themselves the heroes and spawning themselves the biggest or most effective weapons. While I cannot quite comment on how much of this is accurate and how much is just assumption after seeing things from the perspective of a new player, spawning in your own custom items might be contributing to the feel of these people’s resentment. From the context of someone entirely new to the game, if you see an admin’s character has a special gun with their name on it that only they are allowed to use, and it has special markings making it distinct and different from anything the players can make, how many do you think will assume that it’s stats are modified to make it better than the player only version? How many will hold this against the admins for trying to show off before they ever investigate further?

Okay, sure the kink in this argument is that non-admins can get special fluff items themselves, in the case of catbug even an entire new sprite for himself on the old code, and there are numerous instances of people drawing their own sprites and having them added in just for the fun of it. I once saw Ace take an otherwise new player and set up an entire pirate event JUST to give this guy’s player a reason to have and spawn with pirate clothing. Its not like things are always limited to just admin only, and I’d be hard pressed to say it’s only to “The admin’s friends” or “people who kiss ass to the admins” given the examples in which events and special requests are made for players who from what I can tell are almost complete strangers.

On the old code I know there were a handful of special weapons with clearly modified values, that one scythe gun or the special katana for example. But they were just sort of there … and even then players occasionally got their hands on one. Most of the time refusing to touch them simply because they have no need for an obvious weapon.

Other thing to note, just as a general rule for anyone who’s an admin playing around as any character … your words will always appear to carry more weight than anyone else’s, even if you aren’t speaking as an admin. So making a distinction between what you personally prefer and what your advice or words as a player is, and what you’re saying as an admin regarding the actual rules and acceptable behavior on the server is occasionally important.

[Mech__Warrior]

I’d say the important thing to keep in mind is make sure players have /something/ to do, don’t go out of your way to make it clear the player’s actions aren’t relevant, and don’t constantly make yourself above and beyond anything the other players could accomplish. If anyone can catch the DnD analogies, make sure the players are occupied with some task, don’t railroad things down a pre-determined path, and don’t godmode with a GMPC. Beyond that it’s all down to individual judgment calls on specific scenarios, taking into account what you know of the people involved and trying to balance convenience to immersion. We don’t want it to look like we are dealing with gods unless someone actually uses the pray feature and legitimately dealing with a god.

Putting all power to the station when there’s no engineers is a good example here as if there are engineers who would appreciate the work your just taking their job away, but if no one wants to be bothered setting the power then just press that button to ease our headaches. On the reverse, knocking out all the power or pressing that one button that blows all of the lights is annoying as squeak if you expect to just make a mess for people to clean up, or want to say “Oh! Enjoy the darkshift!” like I’ve seen before. One instance of this outright caused an argument and a player to leave, because she was CE at the time and the admin who blew the lights went to bed, then while everyone else was having fun late at night with a dark station another admin came on and demanded that all the lights be fixed. By hand. Before the shift ends. With about 5 people on, all of whom were perfectly situated …

Blowing all the lights so that a scary horror antagonist can sneak around snatching up prey people, that’s an event. That’s a cool scenario. That’s something more than just cleaning up a mess and probably going to be vore related. Just watch the flavor-text and things can work out fine.

But I get the feeling this is about Admin behavior in general and not just during events. Hmm … while it isn’t something I see often among our actual playerbase, elsewhere in other chats the biggest complaint I hear about Virgo admins is that they are “special snowflake” characters who try to be special and unique, setting up events to make themselves the heroes and spawning themselves the biggest or most effective weapons. While I cannot quite comment on how much of this is accurate and how much is just assumption after seeing things from the perspective of a new player, spawning in your own custom items might be contributing to the feel of these people’s resentment. From the context of someone entirely new to the game, if you see an admin’s character has a special gun with their name on it that only they are allowed to use, and it has special markings making it distinct and different from anything the players can make, how many do you think will assume that it’s stats are modified to make it better than the player only version? How many will hold this against the admins for trying to show off before they ever investigate further?

Okay, sure the kink in this argument is that non-admins can get special fluff items themselves, in the case of catbug even an entire new sprite for himself on the old code, and there are numerous instances of people drawing their own sprites and having them added in just for the fun of it. I once saw Ace take an otherwise new player and set up an entire pirate event JUST to give this guy’s player a reason to have and spawn with pirate clothing. Its not like things are always limited to just admin only, and I’d be hard pressed to say it’s only to “The admin’s friends” or “people who kiss ass to the admins” given the examples in which events and special requests are made for players who from what I can tell are almost complete strangers.

On the old code I know there were a handful of special weapons with clearly modified values, that one scythe gun or the special katana for example. But they were just sort of there … and even then players occasionally got their hands on one. Most of the time refusing to touch them simply because they have no need for an obvious weapon.

Other thing to note, just as a general rule for anyone who’s an admin playing around as any character … your words will always appear to carry more weight than anyone else’s, even if you aren’t speaking as an admin. So making a distinction between what you personally prefer and what your advice or words as a player is, and what you’re saying as an admin regarding the actual rules and acceptable behavior on the server is occasionally important.

Arbon, I think you hit the nail on the head. I know I gave the Mjollnir sprite from TG station to Joan to make into Harmony's special weapon, which was an Energy Axe, but that was never implemented. To be honest, I think it would be better as a Fire Axe now but oh well. There was also a gun for combat exosuits called the GAU 17/2 Chaingun, which had a 500 round mag, bullets that could tear apart walls and did massive amounts of damage, but it was balanced because reloading took about a third of a hyper power cell. And when I lost it during the Devourix Mundi ship battle, I lost it for good, along with the Bananium power cell.

As for special, snowflakey weapons, I'm simply going to suggest the scythe that turns into an auto-shotty (No disrespect to Demi). The modified katana actually was just a resprited katana, nothing more, nothing less. I believe all special weapons are just reskins of normal weapons, like how Harmony's Captain's Armor is just a green Captain's Armor suit.

[smirky]

CC Representatives have to go, once and for all. They solely serve as a display of power and add nothing to the current round for the players, they merely exist to show off that the person playing that character is an admin. In-game admin intervention should be handled through faxes, and faxes only. CC Representatives are only, and only fine if the current round has a situation that can only be solved by the direct presence of a higher official and faxes/command reports do not suffice. Otherwise, this job is just a blatant, selfish abuse of your admin powers.

Many times have I seen admin characters with insanely overpowered loadouts. Weapons, mainly energy guns (sometimes fluff ones that have three times the power of a normal taser, for example), syndicate gear like energy swords and parapens, ERT hardsuits (being in a meteor shower is a bad excuse when you're standing in the middle of starboard primary for the duration of the whole shower) when the situation did not recommend them at all, undeserved all access (once, I've seen an admin-controlled security officer with a renamed spare ID), all hearing radios and probably a lot more than I could not see.

Once, I have been demoted as the CMO by a CC rep for possessing all access. When I gave myself all access, I was the only person on the station. When he demoted me, I was the only head of staff aboard the station.

Once, I was demoted as the HoS by a CC rep without any warning or second chance for calling the captain a bitch. Reason? She was insulting the warden, the only security personnel aboard the station besides me, for patrolling on the station in a round where the warden patrolling was a completely reasonable act.

Admin intervention, like rejuvs should only, and only be reserved to cases of blatant, otherwise irreparable grief.

Events are fine as soon as it's for the entertainment of the players and not the entertainment of the admins.

[Arbon]

Are you sure that happened on virgo? Because for deadshift rounds I've actually had admins /outright suggest/ you should try HoP and give everyone more access to play around in places and try jobs for the first time when there is no one around to bother. Usually very late into what's night for north America when having even an engineer is sometimes iffy.

Insulting the captain because the captain was insulting security sounds like a strange escalation in which one insult leads to a bigger one, and then someone with an admin character stepped in from a high position of IC power to remove the problem. The fact that a CC officer was even capable of demoting someone on their own accord seems to be against the stated purpose of a representative. Which is to be a player in the game with a rank other than assistant who has no station-side responsibilities because they can be called away at any point.

Kayleen tried to do security after signing on as an admin, and having to balance both her security job and her being called away to go do admin things and handle a greifer on that shift was just too much. You don't want admins to choose between being able to roleplay and actually doing their job as an admin, and you don't want them to have to balance IC and OOC responsibility for every event. Some observer or representative role that's essentially just a glorified assistant with access to Centcom station is helpful for their sake.

Having weapons signed in, armor pulled in from nowhere, or in some cases acting as security ... that can take it a bit too far.

Thinking about it, if you did call the captain a "bitch" then it is entirely within the /captain's/ right to just fire you from the HoS position. The captain has control over the heads and would simply be required to assign a new HoS. Managing the four heads working under her is specifically the captain's job, and so long as the other heads are doing everything fine then the captain has nothing they need to do. A CC representative firing you is extraordinarily strange, but if the captain wanted you gone there's no reason she'd have to call a representative in at all.

[smirky]

You don't want admins to choose between being able to roleplay and actually doing their job as an admin, and you don't want them to have to balance IC and OOC responsibility for every event.

You're forgetting something very important here. Administrating a server is not a REWARD it's a RESPONSIBILITY. Player complaints/events/answering faxes ALWAYS comes before your own roleplay and own enjoyment. You're not an admin so you can flash your special color in OOC and occasionally chip in with decisions about the server, chatting on asay and spawning yourself stuff sometimes.

Two things. If you're afraid that administrating will ruin your roleplaying experience, don't become an admin. Alternatively, use the de-admin self verb that no one ever thinks about using.

(source: being an admin on an action-rp server with 40+ population all the times and always putting the players before my own enjoyment)

[Scree]

Thinking about it, if you did call the captain a "bitch" then it is entirely within the /captain's/ right to just fire you from the HoS position. The captain has control over the heads and would simply be required to assign a new HoS. Managing the four heads working under her is specifically the captain's job, and so long as the other heads are doing everything fine then the captain has nothing they need to do. A CC representative firing you is extraordinarily strange, but if the captain wanted you gone there's no reason she'd have to call a representative in at all.

Yeah. Complaining "I was insubordinate IC and got fired IC" is kinda a non-issue. It's covered under "play realistic characters" - the sort of person who directly insults their superiors over open comms isn't realistically the sort of person who's gonna last in a corporate environment long enough to be a head.

[arokha]

Once, I have been demoted as the CMO by a CC rep for possessing all access. When I gave myself all access, I was the only person on the station. When he demoted me, I was the only head of staff aboard the station.

Admin intervention, like rejuvs should only, and only be reserved to cases of blatant, otherwise irreparable grief.

This was not admin intervention. You were literally standing in a place you were not allowed as CMO when I walked by and was like 'wha?'. I also told you, ICly as well as OOCly, that if you had given yourself just 'a bit more access', even though still illegal, I wouldn't have cared. You gave yourself Captain-access for no reason.

I have zero idea why you are complaining that you did something illegal and got caught, though? I had no idea you did it until I saw you literally standing there inside an area while CMO, a role I regularly play, has no access to. I did not sign on to demote you, I signed on to play, and was just walking around and noticed. Maybe you should be more sneaky next time? I could have done the same thing as captain or HoS or HoP. Would you be complaining then?

[arokha]

Also just in reply to the whole superpowered admin characters thing: I carry a renamed normal egun. The variables are all the same as a normal egun. I went through the same process as anybody else to request it, had it approved, got sprites for it, etc. Have an IC license to carry it that goes with it, and whatnot. All requested and approved here, on the forums. There /have/ been times where I was given a var-edited gun to use on events by other admins, and I have given them to other players to have fun with, because I am not comfortable using them. My character is a medic, so he likes to do medical things.

In terms of spawning other items, my typical spawn list for being a CC Rep is: satchel w/wallet (because it doesn't come with any bag), asus_rose medkit (empty medkit, does not come with any contents, just has a cooler looking sprite), my approved fluff gun, a holster, and usually re-spawn my survival box since I usually accidentally deleted it by changing equipment. Thas' it.

Does anybody think THAT loadout is overpowered or bad?

I spawned a parapen ONE SHIFT and ended up using it on you after you handcuff-buckled me to a bed and then let me up. I regret this since you seem to have held a grudge against me for it forever, even though you can just obtain them in cargo crates...

I also don't play my own events. If you see me playing in an event, it is not one I am assisting with. I either go to a dorm or somewhere private and aghost for my own events so I can watch/manage them, or don't sign on at all and spend the whole time as an observer, getting players to antag each other. Like a fun time Jacobdragon wanted something to do so he got to be a Vox that raided for bellypets.

Maybe your complaints aren't about me, but, just wanted to mention that. Also if you guys are really worried about these things, please just ask in LOOC or OOC or ahelp if you think we're doing something unfair. The last thing we want is players with unspoken feelings of unfairness or admins being unjust. Just tell us. We can take it.

[Arbon]

The fluffed weapons can /look/ like a problem from the outside looking in if you have newer players seeing the special named weapon and making assumptions, or really anyone seeing that the admins have things other players don’t normally get to spawn with and assuming they must be edited to make them more powerful. But that’s something that can be perceived as a problem, not something that actually is a problem. The fact fluff items are not even remotely exclusive to admins shoots down that theory pretty handily. Maybe keep this in mind with newer players as this perceived ‘snowflake specialness’ is a problem for a large number of people that don’t choose to play on virgo at all? But the server as a whole is better for their inclusion.

While I will say that spawning in a parapen was probably a bad call barring some extreme context I happen to be missing, the other things you spawned in don’t really look like anything that would cause a problem. At worst your denying cargo the chance to get you items, and at best your making sure not to take items and resources that other people could have used. In theory you could get a little bit of roleplay by asking a botanist to produce a wallet for you … but in practice your saving a fair bit of annoyance on everyone’s part.

…

*shiftyeyes*

I am now reminded of that one time Kayleen signed in, and teleported herself directly over to medbay for her scan rather than walk there, for the convenience of getting to a scene faster. No idea if that counted as admin abuse or not on a deadshift, but it was hilarious in context.

[arokha]

At worst your denying cargo the chance to get you items, and at best your making sure not to take items and resources that other people could have used.

I dunno how many of you have ever had the "+FUN" permission on a SS13 server and I dun wanna make assumptions so I'll explain real fast.

To get the CCR equipment, you pick from an 'equipment list', and one of the choices is "CentCom Representative" (now Nanotrasen Representative, soon to be Nanotrasen Observer). It deletes all the items off the character, and then just shoves a preset equipment loadout onto them. Unfortunately it lacks a bag. Even ASSISTANTS start with a bag.

So I mostly say this spawning is OOC "Yeah I'm going to remember to bring my bag to work today". Like, why would I /not/ have taken a bag with me?