turn bagil into the player's table server

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dendydoom
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turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #729909

hello again,

based on the excellent feedback i received from "change bagil to mrp" and "change dynamic on manuel to only select restricted antagonists" and further discussions i've had with others in the community, i'd like to pitch another crazy scheme to see what you think of it.

a common thing that comes up, and as was explored by higgin in his post in the dynamic thread, there is a certain lack of personalized and perhaps smaller scale roleplay experiences available. our good game of ss13 is chaotic and often fast paced, highly improvised and energetic, and we love it for that. but within manuel there are reams and reams of character lore and extended universe stuff that people have spent sometimes years writing and developing. we have things like common core which never make an appearance in the game. there is a lot of untapped creative material and potential here.

on the admin side, there is a push to try and see if we can get players in event running roles, but often times this is unrealistic on highly populated servers. players cannot resolve tickets, and events pretty much always generate more tickets. there have been a few schemes of how to get around this, but in the end i still see them as a way to create more admin bureaucracy and not more events, because the end goal of players managing a highpop server isn't really feasible.

so, with all of that in mind, i'd like to propose that we discuss the idea of turning bagil into an mrp server, but also opening that server up to custom events, run by admins and players, in a way that it creates a space for people who want more directed, structured rounds that are managed by players and admins. basically a d&d ss13 server where anyone can DM if they have the motivation.

people could use it for combat events, or small character moments, or big grand adventures that they run every week, it could be anything. my first proposal was to create a small ship map, and then each week have a little planet adventure to run around on and see what happens.

of course, there are a few considerations to this. firstly, the server would still be mrp, not hrp, and my concern is that the community would need to understand that everyone would be welcome, and that elitism or entitlement to the space or the stories therein cannot develop. it will be to the same standard of gameplay on manuel, and we would not restrict or eject people who don't live up to any one person's ideals of rp. it would just be a smaller table for people to get more creative and personal with, in a quieter corner away from the bigger game tables, but everyone would still be welcome to use it.

this will also be a long term project that might take some time to set up. it will be something we will have to figure out if the community is interested.

as always, the disclaimer:
this is not set in stone. this is not a suggestion i'm set on. this is not something i'm going to aggressively push because i really want it. this is not something i think will even necessarily work. i just want to hear what players think about it, because it is a change that will affect them the most.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Blacklist897 » #729910

yeah this is cool
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by TheRex9001 » #729912

Its a cool idea but very much so in the idea phase. I like empowering players to run events and hope this leads in to further action for that. This is a neat concept but I’d need something more substantial to provide thoughts.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by DrAmazing343 » #729913

I think this is an excellent idea, sort-of bridging the gap between our "turn Sybil to MRP, make Harryuel reality," etc. etc. I especially like the idea of upping player involvement in events— I think that is, de-facto, one of the biggest things I've heard people quietly voicing because they never think there's an opportunity to make it happen as a player. I also think that, overall, creating a space in which you can come to expect a certain level of bus each round is quite enticing; even if you're not gonna see some crazy, zany shit ever time, the idea that the world can and perhaps will react more organically to actions that aren't supported by code is incredibly attractive. I've always found this as the best part of a highly-adminned round wherein all the admins aren't afraid to press buttons; you can pray something, or be noticed occasionally, and you will be rewarded with something that you normally couldn't do made possible by the omnipotent eye in the sky.

Another good point here is making the character-driven stories happen more— we've bitched and moaned about Space Dragon interrupting stuff, or a sudden Nuke Ops, or what have you, but this space could more aptly support a smaller-scale, less interrupted roleplaying experience without going to HRP or necessarily kicking people out.

Out of this, however, I do foresee two possible pitfalls; that being people under the illusion that it IS and HRP experience, and those few Bagillites that will come to see their home terraformed, and made ready for new audiences.

The former resembles some of the culture ideas surrounding Manuel, but thankfully the high turnover of players sort-of keeps this in check, as far as I've seen. A lot of people get pissy and tribalist when they see someone who conforms less to their high standards of roleplay, but they can't exercise authority over them (worsening their experience) because there's dozens of players like that. This is a good and a bad thing— I do wish we had more roleplay, but I also would HATE to see someone who does not care so much to it forced to conform in anything but the most extreme conditions. After all that, I digress. A smaller "table" could lead to exactly the sort of cultural issue that we seek to keep out. The gatekeeping mindset, firmly believing in HRP, could pose issues to individual players looking to come to the D&D server, considering they'd be far more outnumbered. Regular administration will help with these sorta tribalist issues, but it's a worry of mine all the same.

The latter, considering our precious few Bagillites, I think may be the lesser of the issues, though an issue nonetheless. I wish there was an easier way to take a "team temperature" here and see what the Bagillites would like, but ultimately, I think this would be a good move for server population either way. Campbell still exists for the small-scale experience like Bagil, and perhaps any disgruntled Bagillites could move their?

Regardless, I quite like this idea. It'd be a lot of work, for certain, but Rome wasn't built in a day, and a PEAK server is the result of countless hours and experiences. I look forward to seeing where this idea could go, and I would 110% love to "DM" here, if it's carried to the finish line. Like Rex says, we would have to talk substance, but I am so full of Hope.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #729914

the events wouldn't necessarily even have to be on a station. people could make maps and run whatever avant garde weird bullshit they like. some lynchian nightmare rounds that push the boundaries of what the game is for, or just cute things like, one time in a manuel round a planet was namedropped, now you're motivated to run a little campaign where you go and explore that planet or whatever.

i feel like this sort of exploration of extant stories and concepts could feed back into manuel and other servers too, invigorate people by giving them smaller experiences, and then they bounce back into the big top where all the crazy rounds happen on the main servers. characters would be fuller, the universe more fleshed out because we have opportunities to step out and explore it.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by TheRex9001 » #729915

I have faith in this server concept, and I'd love to help it grow because I know its gonna feedback into the administrative team and playerbase IF the ball can get rolling first.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #729916

TheRex9001 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 8:57 am I have faith in this server concept, and I'd love to help it grow because I know its gonna feedback into the administrative team and playerbase IF the ball can get rolling first.
i feel like it would train a lot more contributors too. people interested in code and maps have trouble getting their stuff in, especially if they're scared and new. a quieter table to hone their craft would do wonders, i think.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by DrAmazing343 » #729917

dendydoom wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 8:59 am
TheRex9001 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 8:57 am -headminvotefall2024snip-
i feel like it would train a lot more contributors too.
Doubling down on this, the biggest barrier to contributors is the sense of seriousness/complexity surrounding contributing to the game. By allowing people to run their maps and adminbussed sprites in, maybe some fancy lua bullshit? It encourages them to continue refining it until it passes the maintainer check, and they'll be all the more excited to contribute more.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Constellado » #729919

Yooo I would 100 percent use this!

There are many times where I would have loved to RP specific stuff like setting up a doom device or something but its not really possible to plan.

I would love for player events too if...
We knew how to use admin tools. I used it a little for a private server and I look at the admin tools and just get so confused. It would be a big issue trying to train players on how to use tools just for their special DM rounds on bagil.

I don't want to apply for admin to get training for events either due to well. I know I will be playing less if I do, and I prefer actually playing the game...

But I love this idea either way!!
I would 100 end up making small maps and such for it.
or, most likely just sprites.
I wanted to make sprites for admins to make bluespace monsters. It would be neat being able to have an actual bluespace incursion.
Also, being able to plan events on specific days and hours sounds like a very good idea as well.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Plapatin » #729925

my big concerns are:
  • this seems to make the events workshop redundant. if there are problems with the setup of that program, are they actually unable to be resolved? could the goal of this idea not be suited better to the tools already in place?
  • what would this mean for the other servers? i feel like a lot of people have probably intuited this but high effort, round-defining, admin-abuse DM events are noticeably less common than they used to be (there are several reasons for this, but maybe most relevant here is that quality standards have changed significantly) and i expect a non-trivial portion of admins would feel like they /can't/ run those kinds of events unless it's specifically on the designated events server.
  • if population is an issue, how would you guarantee that the rounds are small & quiet? i have to imagine if these are at all planned in advance they would draw in quite the audience - surely just harshly capping the server pop isn't the best solution
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Waltermeldron » #729926

Plapatin wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 2:17 pm
  • what would this mean for the other servers? i feel like a lot of people have probably intuited this but big, round-defining, admin-abuse DM events are noticeably less common than they used to be (there are several reasons for this, but maybe most relevant here is that quality standards have changed significantly) and i expect a non-trivial portion of admins would feel like they /can't/ run big events unless it's specifically on the designated events server.
I don't think this'd necessarily happen, nor that quality standards have changed in any significant amount. It's just that coming up with interesting event ideas isn't super easy, and doing the work to implement those event ideas takes a long time. Having another server that has significantly more leeway in how events run and who can run events wouldn't really change anything considering the bar for admins running events is super low right now. It would just open up a method for players to more easily run events; I wouldn't change how I run any of my events on terry or manuel.
Plapatin wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 2:17 pm
  • if population is an issue, how would you guarantee that the rounds are small & quiet? i have to imagine if these are at all planned in advance they would draw in quite the audience - surely just harshly capping the server pop isn't the best solution
I think bringing more players to the server is the goal. The more the merrier, usually makes for more interesting events too. Having too little players generally tends to make events boring, though too many can be a problem too, but it's a more fun problem to worry about than getting no one. If it's consistently roping in a sizable chunk of players, then that just means future player events would plan around that and it wouldn't really result in a worsened experience. The events that are run will adapt to the playerbase that chooses to play.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Plapatin » #729927

Waltermeldron wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 2:31 pmI don't think this'd necessarily happen, nor that quality standards have changed in any significant amount. It's just that coming up with interesting event ideas isn't super easy, and doing the work to implement those event ideas takes a long time. Having another server that has significantly more leeway in how events run and who can run events wouldn't really change anything considering the bar for admins running events is super low right now. It would just open up a method for players to more easily run events; I wouldn't change how I run any of my events on terry or manuel
this is one of the other several reasons i eluded to in my previous post. creativity is hard, i'm not worried about the difficulty inherent to making a compelling idea. i'm specifically worried that admins who would otherwise be running the same hypothetical event on our standard servers saving their best ideas for the space that it is guaranteed to be received well on
with all due respect watermelon i think you are in a minority of admins who are confident in their own events -- obviously there's no data i can bring up here (nor would there be any way to collect it) but i feel like there's a pretty coherent train of thought to understand why it might happen for someone else, and it'd be silly to dismiss it out of hand
i would love to be proven wrong about this. there's probably a smart way to mitigate it happening but i can't think of one right now


and to respond to the other point:
Waltermeldron wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 2:31 pmI think bringing more players to the server is the goal. -snip-
unless i'm reading this wrong it seems like bringing more population to basil is specifically not the goal. see:
dendydoom wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 7:45 am [...] on the admin side, there is a push to try and see if we can get players in event running roles, but often times this is unrealistic on highly populated servers. players cannot resolve tickets, and events pretty much always generate more tickets. there have been a few schemes of how to get around this, but in the end i still see them as a way to create more admin bureaucracy and not more events, because the end goal of players managing a highpop server isn't really feasible. [...]
it would just be a smaller table for people to get more creative and personal with, in a quieter corner away from the bigger game tables, but everyone would still be welcome to use it.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Waltermeldron » #729928

Plapatin wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 3:04 pm this is one of the other several reasons i eluded to in my previous post. creativity is hard, i'm not worried about the difficulty inherent to making a compelling idea. i'm specifically worried that admins who would otherwise be running the same hypothetical event on our standard servers saving their best ideas for the space that it is guaranteed to be received well on
with all due respect watermelon i think you are in a minority of admins who are confident in their own events -- obviously there's no data i can bring up here (nor would there be any way to collect it) but i feel like there's a pretty coherent train of thought to understand why it might happen for someone else, and it'd be silly to dismiss it out of hand
i would love to be proven wrong about this. there's probably a smart way to mitigate it happening but i can't think of one right now
I can't really speak for other admins. Maybe I am in the minority, but I can only speak on how my experiences would be shaped by this change as an admin. There is definitely a way to get data on this though, best way to get more info in this would be to have more admins comment on their experiences in running events and how this would impact their way of running events. We should be able to trivially do this since there aren't a huge number of admins on our team anyways, and we can use a tool like discord to get quick thoughts.

I don't think the argument entirely holds because admins can already kinda do this by firing up the event server to run whatever wacky events they want. It's just a lot easier to run it on terry/manuel because players are there already and there isn't any need to gather a group of players and run it on this server. Even if this ultimately happens, it's not really a bad thing since it's allowing admins to test their events on a playerbase who are willing to participate in whatever wacky antics an admin throws their way. It might mean less events on terry/sybil/manuel, but it allows admins to fully scope and thoroughly test their event ideas before deciding to run it on a server with a bigger population. With just one of my event ideas, I usually have to run them 5-10 times before I can get a good grasp on how to perfect the specific event's formula so that it can be enjoyed by a lot of players.
Plapatin wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 3:04 pm unless i'm reading this wrong it seems like bringing more population to basil is specifically not the goal. see:
dendydoom wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 7:45 am [...] on the admin side, there is a push to try and see if we can get players in event running roles, but often times this is unrealistic on highly populated servers. players cannot resolve tickets, and events pretty much always generate more tickets. there have been a few schemes of how to get around this, but in the end i still see them as a way to create more admin bureaucracy and not more events, because the end goal of players managing a highpop server isn't really feasible. [...]
it would just be a smaller table for people to get more creative and personal with, in a quieter corner away from the bigger game tables, but everyone would still be welcome to use it.
Even if it's not the goal of dendy, I don't think it's necessarily a bad consequence and I think it should be a part of the goal. The big difference between this server and terry/manuel is that people are coming to see/participate in events, compared to people playing the game as the game is intended to be played. I don't think dendy is saying that the population needs to be low, they're saying that the players who choose to play acknowledge that they're getting a more wacky experience that could interfere with how the game is intended to be played. Even if they're not saying this and I'm misinterpreting, I think this should generally be the goal, where we give players the intention that this is an event server and that they're at the whims of whoever's currently running the events and they're choosing to participate in those whims by playing on the server.

Ultimately, I think the goal is, and should be, to give players a new space to try wacky things that don't necessarily conform to the game rules of the server. The primary goal here is to avoid generating tickets and needing admins to handle them, but since everyone understands that they're playing on an event server, the best recourse that they should be able to expect from adminhelping is not any sort of administrative punishment, but some form of IC retribution from whoever's running the event.

Of course, admins can still exist and intervene administratively in situations unrelated to the event itself, i.e. some guy hopping on and blowing up the station. The event runner can mitigate on an IC level, within the scope of the game. The admins can investigate and punish administratively. It would work because it's an event server branded as one, rather than as one of our typical game servers, so our players know what to roughly expect. If there are no admins on, then an IC solution from an event runner will have to suffice, though I don't know if we'd want to run this with no admins on.

Anyways, just my thoughts on this as a whole, I think it can work on an administrative level, but we'd need checks in place to prevent event runners from gaining information and access to things they shouldn't otherwise have, (i.e. IP/CIDs, notes, etc)
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by warbluke » #729932

DrAmazing343 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 8:42 am The latter, considering our precious few Bagillites, I think may be the lesser of the issues, though an issue nonetheless. I wish there was an easier way to take a "team temperature" here and see what the Bagillites would like, but ultimately, I think this would be a good move for server population either way. Campbell still exists for the small-scale experience like Bagil, and perhaps any disgruntled Bagillites could move their?
Hello I play on Bagil and I will continue to play there no matter what happens. You could make it an HRP server, an ERP server, or even a TDM server and I would still exclusively play there just out of habit.
The rest of the server might be a bit more reluctant but there are currently people who do play Bagil for small scale low intensity character interactions. On the other hand sometimes we also play it as more of a chatroom where we talk about real things like fallout and ignore the fourth wall entirely which definitely won't work out with an mrp switch.
If you want an overall temperature you should go ask Richie as I'm fairly certain he admins most days of the week. If anyone has an overview of the server and its culture it would be him.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #729942

hello,

im on mobile right now so this won't be my standard essay post where i try to elaborate on every point, i will try to do that when im next available at my pc

in my mind here are a few aspects of this ideas implementation:

outside of events, it would run normal maps and use the mrp ruleset.

we could have something like a monthly calendar where people are free to sign up for slots to run events. players would then be able to see these events, a short description of what it is, certain expectations for the content (combat heavy, investigation, survival adventure, whatever) and sign up. this could be factored into the existing event planning and running infrastructure we have, and be a very streamlined process which needs as little hand changing or bureaucracy from admin to admin as necessary to keep the process easy and accessible to motivated event runners. I think it would be good to have admins onboard to help and oversee events when possible, so this would allow for a discussion space for things like the best ways to design and implement events, as well as get admins interested to turn up and help out with it.

hopefully this would become a more active space for planning events and getting advice on running them and implementing ideas. a community workshop of sorts.

players would be free to sign up and the only enforcement would be the standard mrp ruleset. event runners would be expected to respect the contributions of players even if it isn't exactly what they planned or intended, as to keep in line and respect the improv nature of our style of play. i would adamantly reject any notion of policing people's contributions outside of the existing mrp rules.

in the event that someone needs to be removed because they broke the standard mrp rules, i think it would benefit the culture of a server like this to not note or ban for it unless its obvious griefing or something extreme. sitting out of the session where a unique event is being run would be the punishment.

thanks to everyone for their consideration so far!
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #729943

i would also like to mention that the purpose of this idea wouldn't be to stop events on other servers, but rather expand the scope of what is possible with events.

xemo ran the absolutely incredible succession station on manuel, but there was a cohort of players who felt deprived of their normal game of space to make room for this experimental event. I would love, love, LOVE for more of these things to be possible, and to be able to give the community a place to run very experimental and new ideas that could teach us a lot of new things about what is possible with our amazing game.





also, we should call it the holodeck server
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by warbluke » #729944

What's the logic behind having it be mrp even when no one is running an event? Just to serve as a release valve for Manuel?
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by PKPenguin321 » #729947

needs a better name than "table server" because wtf does that mean
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by DrAmazing343 » #729956

dendydoom wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 2:57 am xemo ran the absolutely incredible succession station on manuel, but there was a cohort of players who felt deprived of their normal game of space to make room for this experimental event. I would love, love, LOVE for more of these things to be possible, and to be able to give the community a place to run very experimental and new ideas that could teach us a lot of new things about what is possible with our amazing game.
This is a significant point that I'm glad you brought up— At first, the response to SuccStation was unanimously positive, at least up until the later half of hour two, wherein anyone would be tired. Then, with each (succ)session it seems like a lot more folks began to feel the gimmick had worn out, and hung their hats on the idea; by "confining" them to a space like this, with a purely voluntary audience, I think we'll see a lot more growth/advancement and excitement in these ideas!
dendydoom wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 2:57 am also, we should call it the holodeck server
Trekkie brainrot runs deep. I agree.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by DrAmazing343 » #729957

warbluke wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 3:23 am What's the logic behind having it be mrp even when no one is running an event? Just to serve as a release valve for Manuel?
When a lot of the servers content WOULD be MRP, I think it's important to keep the off-hours in-line just the same. Especially if someone happens to jump in randomly, for example, on an "open event?" If they had no idea, it could become a policy or event nightmare to deal with because they're not working alongside the rules or what have you. Also, yeah, straight-up, it'd be good to have a release valve as well.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by DrAmazing343 » #729958

PKPenguin321 wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 4:37 am needs a better name than "table server" because wtf does that mean
holodeck is funny but on the real the "player's table server" sort-of refers to the idea of a table you might find in the back of a board game shop where nerds gather around and play D&D or Magic! or some shit like that, man, it's original.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by warbluke » #729962

Having given the matter more thought, if the events were intended to be player run with combat events being a possibility, why would we restrict ourselves to the mrp ruleset for all events? Why not let the player designing the event designate it as mrp or lrp or nrp or such? Or, and this might be a bad idea, let players make a custom ruleset for the event they want to run (having it be admin-approved since they'd be the ones enforcing it.)
Like if someone wanted to do a relaxed chess tournament they could say that it was nrp with the exception that you can't kill people so that people could banter during the games without worrying about remaining in character and also playing chess.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Higgin » #729965

Plapatin wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 2:17 pm my big concerns are:
  • this seems to make the events workshop redundant. if there are problems with the setup of that program, are they actually unable to be resolved? could the goal of this idea not be suited better to the tools already in place?
  • what would this mean for the other servers? i feel like a lot of people have probably intuited this but high effort, round-defining, admin-abuse DM events are noticeably less common than they used to be (there are several reasons for this, but maybe most relevant here is that quality standards have changed significantly) and i expect a non-trivial portion of admins would feel like they /can't/ run those kinds of events unless it's specifically on the designated events server.
  • if population is an issue, how would you guarantee that the rounds are small & quiet? i have to imagine if these are at all planned in advance they would draw in quite the audience - surely just harshly capping the server pop isn't the best solution
To me, the answers to this would seem to be linked:
  • The events workshop allows for the events that our server setups allow. If we were going to "fix" the workshop to achieve what this idea hopes to achieve, we'd need a lot more latitude to change how the servers those events run on regularly run. That might just mean changing how we advertise rounds and set expectations - "this is an event round. There won't be regular antags. It might not be for you if the regular antag game is what you're looking for. This is part of a chain in the Badabap Conspiracy events that have been running - your participation will be canon within that chain from everything in the previous Badabap events. Things in this round may end up being highly disruptive depending on how it plays out." Eventrunners need to be able to set and execute on these sorts of premises.
  • My internal read is that we both have higher standards of quality and conduct that don't play nice with the regular running of the servers the events might take place on without a dedicated set-aside, and the stories we might tell doing this aren't friendly to the way those servers usually play. For instance, if I send a little player-controlled event character in - an official, a shady trader, a Tiziran conscript stopping by for rest after a tour in the Spinward Sector - I can't in any sort of good faith say they're going to have a chance to play up the role (or others interact with them) if I let Dynamic pitch xenos and the event spawner pitch meteors five minutes after they arrive, but I also can't fairly cancel all of that shit to the loss of everyone who might not interact with that mini-event when people don't expect there'll be nothing else to do. It's also back to a couple of other things - admins on the regular servers have a lot to do with keeping play fair for the antag game already, which is a lot more pressing in high-pop, high-intensity rounds, and both of these things are the case in there being less round-defining bus now.
Finally,
  • Narrative gets harder with more people involved unless there are a lot of moving parts that they can separate out and interact around. You need people happy and able to make their own fun in the sandbox, to some extent, without being directly connected to the dramatic scene of the moment. Flipside, running a game like this (or any tabletop, or even any good event imo) means going around sharing the spotlight and giving opportunities to engage outside a small set - and if people chase the event announcement, they may be disappointed in the payoff if they don't get to be involved with an event or character directly.

    I think we need to do our best but ultimately concede that it's going to happen, it's okay, and every event round isn't going to be for everybody all of the time. My hope is that it'd still be a better place for those people who come in to make their own fun and interact with other characters, try out their own gimmicks that they can't do on the main servers, than any of our other servers are now. If you don't want that or can't do it, might not be your cup of tea - but thankfully, the pot is full on Manny, Sibyl's been doing a bit better lately, etc. We shouldn't do a whitelist or harsh cap - we should be looking at this as an opportunity to not sacrifice folks' stories for quick stimulation, though, and expect that a lot of the quick stimulation set may bounce off. That's okay.
feedback appreciated here <3
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #730023

warbluke wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 3:09 pm Having given the matter more thought, if the events were intended to be player run with combat events being a possibility, why would we restrict ourselves to the mrp ruleset for all events? Why not let the player designing the event designate it as mrp or lrp or nrp or such? Or, and this might be a bad idea, let players make a custom ruleset for the event they want to run (having it be admin-approved since they'd be the ones enforcing it.)
Like if someone wanted to do a relaxed chess tournament they could say that it was nrp with the exception that you can't kill people so that people could banter during the games without worrying about remaining in character and also playing chess.
thank you for sharing your thoughts,

originally this idea grew out of the proposal to make bagil mrp, so that is where the reliance on mrp rules comes from in this idea, but i really see no reason why we couldn't hand that choice over to event runners and incorporate lrp events too. it is an excellent point that i'm glad you raised. i am quite hesitant to support nrp however, since i'm not sure what rules of conduct we could depend upon to ensure that enforcement in these events is fair. we have no nrp ruleset.

this is important because event runners would not be able to arbitrarily eject people from their events. players would be held to the standard rules, and event runners would be expected to work with and respect the valid contributions of players if they are acting within the rules.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by warbluke » #730030

You mentioned people running custom maps, those I know are decently easy to load in. But what about custom code? Something that's not meant for normal gameplay like a modernized devil or something weird like that. Would events be able to have testmerges relating to them?
And, to once again push the envelope way outside the scope of the concept and ideasguy to the max, what about running other codebases on the event server?
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #730141

figuring out exactly how much power we can give to players while maintaining opsec is something we're still discussing. it's a balancing act where we want players to be able to do as much as possible, but also ensure that players who join up to events are not having sensitive information shown to whoever is running the event.

it's something that coders would know a lot more about than me, but hopefully we will be able to do things like allow event runners to run lua scripts and things like that. this is only a moderately educated guess, but i imagine the more complex and bombastic an event is, the more admin support it will require behind the scenes to make it happen as planned. this is why i think the event runner infrastructure is still very important, because it would allow people to "pitch" their events and get people enthusiastic about them enough to want to help out with it.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by The_Silver_Nuke » #730217

I somewhat agree with changing the purpose of Bagil, if only for the data. If Bagil is turned into a MRP server and people still max out Manuel, then that would mean that a good chunk of the playerbase who insist on playing on Manuel despite there being a viable alternative are simply pop chasing, rather than being interested in MRP specifically.

Hopefully this would encourage TG to enforce a lower pop cap on Manuel which would allow people who actually want to RP be allowed to play on RP servers instead of being thrown into the same bunch as LRP pop chasers. I don't know how viable it is to implement a significantly lower soft cap on Manuel and then to implement a check that would allow Manuel players above a certain set of hours to continue joining up until it hits the hard cap, that way the regulars aren't affected by these changes.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by NoxVS » #730221

The_Silver_Nuke wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 9:24 pm I somewhat agree with changing the purpose of Bagil, if only for the data. If Bagil is turned into a MRP server and people still max out Manuel, then that would mean that a good chunk of the playerbase who insist on playing on Manuel despite there being a viable alternative are simply pop chasing, rather than being interested in MRP specifically.
Alternatively, people like to play with their friends. It's difficult to split a section of the community off to start playing on an empty server when they can just keep playing an existing one. It's why Campbell utterly failed - Manuel players were redirected to Campbell, which they played because it was the only choice, and then the moment Manuel was back they immediately left. No one stayed behind because why would they? What does Campbell offer that Manuel doesn't?

The same thing happened with Sybil ages ago. Sybil became real popular, so an overflow server was made - Which no one ever used, because why play "Sybil but worse and with less players"? If Sybil was full you wouldn't go play Sybil-2, you just wouldn't play the game.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #730238

i am also hesitant to support anything which prioritizes players based on things like playtime. someone with 1k hours is not more deserving of playing manuel than someone with 30 minutes. all that matters is they follow the rules.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by The_Silver_Nuke » #730299

Well my suggestion for playtime was ultimately an attempt at a compromise. We don't necessarily have to do it. Adding a significantly lower player cap to Manuel and making Bagil MRP should be sufficient in that case for the purposes of both acquiring data on player behavior and opening up opportunity for a server with extra activities.

As to the Sybil 2 but worse analogy that's somewhat my point. People will just crowd onto a single server if possible just due to that being where the fun is, regardless of the ruleset or player culture.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by dendydoom » #734399

this is something i'm still very much eager to see realized. the roadblock we've hit is basically that the current admin tools that allow for events to be run are given in totality and can't be meaningfully restricted for things like showing sensitive information about connected clients.

what we would need is some sort of "DM panel" that could be enabled easily for player event runners on the server, which would only allow access to the tools required to run events, without any of the extraneous admin tools that could be used harmfully. if VV were to be enabled for event runners, there would also need to be a version which strips out sensitive client information.

i'm not really in a position to code this, so it's something that we'd need help to do to make this idea a reality.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by Timberpoes » #734407

Get maint buy in for the concept, try to find a coder that can implement it, provide rewards like antag tokens or something.

Speaking as a maintainer, I support this proposition and I'd merge a PR implementing this, however I think it would require a refactoring of our permissions systems which is a nontrivial task.

Many much adminny stuff is guarded behind permissions checks which are often arbitrary in choice of which permission gatekeeps which privilege, and at some point our tools grant the power to bypass restrictions on power.

I suppose a more limited DM panel and a brand new permission linked with it could also work, implementing pre-defined operations such as limited VV that only exposes safe variables to see and change.

Ie a safe DM panel without all the power of our existing tools and just preset functionalities, no proc calls, no unlimited VV, just strictly defined behaviours.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by wet socks » #734736

I like this idea, but I think that ultimately there will end up being a group of people that we trust more than others based on how reliably they run these events, and they will need the right training on how to use the allocated tools and the right sense about what makes the game and these stories fun and unfun.

Also, partial code issue
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by MatrixOne » #734753

I support the proposition and idea!
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by warbluke » #734807

There are events that could be done without having to make a custom GM panel, if we wanted to do a test run.
Just let the player who comes up with it have some of the debug equipment and a custom map, or let admins do a few to get started and see how the population reacts.
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Re: turn bagil into the player's table server

Post by kieth4 » #741911

This is closed for now whilst we deal with internal situations that have arisen
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