Metagaming and metacommunications (scary organ music)

[iwishforducks]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY

Metagaming and metacommunications. Beyond people simply purposefully cheating, what are your general thoughts on this? I have heard many admins say that they would simply not care if someone was discord calling someone to teach them the game, while I've seen other players be given the hammer for it. There's a pretty even split between admins who think it's okay under some circumstances while others who believe the hammer must be brought down at the slightest metacommunication, no matter the circumstance.

For your own reference, these are all metacommunication related appeals I can remember as of recently (that aren't just someone appealing year old bans or admitting to using it for explicitly cheating):
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36381
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36409
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36245

Note: The images of this appeal are no longer visible. Sorry. From what I remember one screenshot they posted was a CC message and the other was a picture of a space ruin. Regardless I believe this one is still interesting: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34876

Extra credit: I'd like to bring to the table that (at the time of these), it was common practice to download the entirety of a suspected metacomm discord server's messages and comb through the saved logs. Do you believe in this practice?

[Ezel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY

Metagaming and metacommunications. Beyond people simply purposefully cheating, what are your general thoughts on this? I have heard many admins say that they would simply not care if someone was discord calling someone to teach them the game, while I've seen other players be given the hammer for it. There's a pretty even split between admins who think it's okay under some circumstances while others who believe the hammer must be brought down at the slightest metacommunication, no matter the circumstance.

For your own reference, these are all metacommunication related appeals I can remember as of recently (that aren't just someone appealing year old bans or admitting to using it for explicitly cheating):
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36381
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36409
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36245

Note: The images of this appeal are no longer visible. Sorry. From what I remember one screenshot they posted was a CC message and the other was a picture of a space ruin. Regardless I believe this one is still interesting: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34876

Extra credit: I'd like to bring to the table that (at the time of these), it was common practice to download the entirety of a suspected metacomm discord server's messages and comb through the saved logs. Do you believe in this practice?

My sight on metacomming is pretty simple(Since i did it meself) Sharing in game information is definitly a no no it gives you a unfair adventage of others ingame and thats whats the big issue here, if you were teaching a friend the game you notify the admins so they can take note of it happening. Lets take a example of our community streamer livrah, they have to notify admins whenever they're streaming so they can take note if players suddenly attacked livrah if they know livrah was a antag or some regards or put a pretty suspicious trap using that metaknowledge, the key is that metacomming/metaknowledge ruins the game for others and i think the key is always to ahelp before you even stream to see if you get permission and admins can keep in check

About the discord thing im pretty sure getting all the logs and stuff is against the ToS but if you have a admin/player who reported you in the server posted metacomm related messages or saved all the chat messages and send it to a admin its kinda what it is, it sucks. lets take my ban for example. i got banned for metacomming since i was streaming the game on Aoifecord (Which was pretty stupid) but i didn't auctally sharing any infotmation vocally but since im streaming the game they can just see the information and make use of that. aoifecord has Maxipat as admin at the time and MSO since they saw i was streaming they couldn't tell exactly what happened or went down so in naturel result all people in that call got banned for metacomming and then they checkef message history if anyone else metacommed and banned too. i think its just natural to go back into the logs and see how long this metacomming has been going on and with who its just a very hard thing judge.

I think they key of the story here is just to adminhelp if you can

[Maxipat]

Metacomming ruins my favourite part of ss13 - the uncertainty. If you had all information you could get in a round, playing this game wouldn't make sense at all, since the chaos and paranoia is gone. It's anti-thetical to the core of the game and should be kept banned if used as a form of cheating.

Bit different situation is when you want to introduce your friend to the game and teach them game mechanics - we shouldn't really scare off people because "aaah scary rules we need to follow to the letter", the bar is that the experienced player should pre-warn the admins that they're gonna do it. Currently it's up to the particular admin, which i think is reasonable since we lack needed framework to control it and it basically needs an admin pay extra attention to them so that it doesn't cross to cheating. I really liked what Jackraxxus proposed though, dedicated space for new players even with VC channels on our discord so older players can teach new players game controls and mechanics.

I myself allow metacomming to teach new people IF it's pre-ahelped, i just tell them to pick prisoner/spawn them as prisoner (since that's a job most separated from entire station with least possibility of cheating) and just positivenote them that they know eachother (which is what we do if we know players know eachother out of the game, like they're roommates and such)

EXTRA CREDIT: Discord chat logs downloading is technically against it's TOS IF it's a bot doing it, i don't think they have a way to enforce all ways of log downloading (like with chrome extensions and stuff), but i'm technically guilty of doing that once. What Improvedname mentioned, there was a livestream of terry round on-going in voice-chat that i noticed, gave a headsup to other admins and downloaded the chat logs for headmins to comb through, before anything can be deleted. The usual reasoning behind it is that proving metacomms is ULTRA hard if someone's cautious, especially so that discord messages can be deleted without any way of checking what was in that message, so standard practice is scraping the logs before anything can be changed and then dealing with metacommings rule break. Usually, when there's one instance of metacomming on a server there are many more in the past that just went unnoticed.

About streaming the game itself, there's also no way of checking who got any information from it and how were they used, so also, "standard practice" is to ban everyone currently in the voice chat.

[iansdoor]

Metagaming and metacommunications. Beyond people simply purposefully cheating, what are your general thoughts on this? I have heard many admins say that they would simply not care if someone was discord calling someone to teach them the game, while I've seen other players be given the hammer for it. There's a pretty even split between admins who think it's okay under some circumstances while others who believe the hammer must be brought down at the slightest metacommunication, no matter the circumstance.

For your own reference, these are all metacommunication related appeals I can remember as of recently (that aren't just someone appealing year old bans or admitting to using it for explicitly cheating):
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36381
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36409
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36245

Note: The images of this appeal are no longer visible. Sorry. From what I remember one screenshot they posted was a CC message and the other was a picture of a space ruin. Regardless I believe this one is still interesting: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34876

Extra credit: I'd like to bring to the table that (at the time of these), it was common practice to download the entirety of a suspected metacomm discord server's messages and comb through the saved logs. Do you believe in this practice?

Well, I'll tell you after dealing with solid number of them. My opinion, the purpose of metagaming or metacommunications is to usually vent about whatever or collect likeminded individuals together. Venting about whatever is perfectly normal, keeps sanity sometimes, unless that is all that group does. This overventing does contribute to burn out and burning out has multiple endings as you saw. Also, the collection of likeminded individuals starts as a great idea with intention or interest, that ends up slogging down because of how frustrating SS13 is, which leads back to venting and then poor choices. The only remedy to that is not talk about ss13 with those folks, which is hard.

Strictly speaking, TG has always wanted their players to speak and communicate in in-game with teaching or likewise. Admins appreciate the heads-up for something, that they can wand wave the harsh rule. And for those that get slammed by the hammer, always get the warning and the talk to and if they can't understand why metacommunication is a bad practice for server play or a silly mistake. Then the harsh rule of rule 2 is applied. No exceptions in folks that cheat. There is opportunity to talk before and after a round, but the round itself should be a secret to those playing. This doesn't apply to the folks on the watchlist for streaming, example: livrah. To which I do recall someone metagaming and attempting to ruin their stream once on Campbell, as they went to Centcom to disrupt a mafia game.

If you are asking the future of rule 2 edition: free yourself earlier from standard year ban, I think you should be able to request logs, prove that you weren't and make a strong case about it. Admins lean towards the benefit of players. How does one go about that, you would have to comb over last 50 rounds of how you interact with the round itself and explain key parts. Ironically, this part is on the player to change the ruling. The view and sight of admins observing is mostly subjective, with cases of folks just having those lucky coincidence with the "person" they play with, seems too good to be true. There are some methods to check if they were indeed, but that is speculation at the end. Perhaps there is a general misunderstanding since IC friendships are needed to play the game or get griefed by random chaos that follows that round. RP is still king.


Looking at what you sent forward.

The first case was a misunderstanding in that Campbell, being an official TG server and not a test branch that it wasn't. The other main misunderstanding for everyone is that lowpop really breaks the game loop. That said, there could be leniency towards Jupiter to clear up the misunderstanding, since he wanted to teach someone that was eager to get better. There has to be some respect towards that noble intention.

The second case was caught in 4k video, but who is to say what they really were listening to or doing within that round. I do know a bit of history of that server and it's just big err on their everyone's part to join in on that call, but it was common for that server to stream games to each other. TG is not one of those that allow such. Either way, wrong place wrong time and that is considered cheating, unless you can prove it otherwise.

The third case was a new player not reading the server rules, and so they were brought in to read the rules. No metacommunication is allowed because that could be cheating and cheating is not allowed.

The fourth case was over a long period of time on a private discord with a group that knew each other. They knew the rules and mentioned what was happening within the group. I am unsure if they were actually talked to, and some kind of first offense. Either way, what they continued to do stacked up and that is considered cheating, even if information was minor.

There are more cases unlooked on here, buried in bureaucracy, but the main theme is either miscommunication or misunderstanding of the rule and what is expected of players and admins. The main truth is that fair play is important to TG server, so ahelp to get a clarification or to give the headups.

[TheRex9001]

Metacomms fucking suck, cheating takes out a lot of fun from the game especially for others, but using them to help a new player and not cheat is ok imo, just don't play in that round and stay in VC to help the new guy. Combing through all the logs has always felt a bit yikes to me, checking ones related to the incident sure but some folks will share a lot more personal info with the people in their group, info that they want to stay private.

[kinnebian]

Im with Rex on this one, 100% agreement. I would go as far to mention stealing Dramazing's previous idea of providing a dedicated space for newer players to be helped.

[iwishforducks]

Metacomms fucking suck, cheating takes out a lot of fun from the game especially for others, but using them to help a new player and not cheat is ok imo, just don't play in that round and stay in VC to help the new guy.

Im with Rex on this one, 100% agreement.

A little confused about these responses. You say that metacomming to help a new player out is an exception but you say that you shouldn't play in the round. What exception is being made here? Do you think that being in a VC with someone that's not playing in the round counts as metacommunication?

My sight on metacomming is pretty simple(Since i did it meself) Sharing in game information is definitly a no no it gives you a unfair adventage of others ingame and thats whats the big issue here, if you were teaching a friend the game you notify the admins so they can take note of it happening. Lets take a example of our community streamer livrah, they have to notify admins whenever they're streaming so they can take note if players suddenly attacked livrah if they know livrah was a antag or some regards or put a pretty suspicious trap using that metaknowledge, the key is that metacomming/metaknowledge ruins the game for others and i think the key is always to ahelp before you even stream to see if you get permission and admins can keep in check

I think they key of the story here is just to adminhelp if you can

Bit different situation is when you want to introduce your friend to the game and teach them game mechanics - we shouldn't really scare off people because "aaah scary rules we need to follow to the letter", the bar is that the experienced player should pre-warn the admins that they're gonna do it. Currently it's up to the particular admin, which i think is reasonable since we lack needed framework to control it and it basically needs an admin pay extra attention to them so that it doesn't cross to cheating. I really liked what Jackraxxus proposed though, dedicated space for new players even with VC channels on our discord so older players can teach new players game controls and mechanics.

I myself allow metacomming to teach new people IF it's pre-ahelped, i just tell them to pick prisoner/spawn them as prisoner (since that's a job most separated from entire station with least possibility of cheating) and just positivenote them that they know eachother (which is what we do if we know players know eachother out of the game, like they're roommates and such)

There are more cases unlooked on here, buried in bureaucracy, but the main theme is either miscommunication or misunderstanding of the rule and what is expected of players and admins. The main truth is that fair play is important to TG server, so ahelp to get a clarification or to give the headups.

Ultimately while many folks in this thread have said that they personally stated that they would allow folks to VC with their friends to help teach them the game, it's a bit sketchy to ahelp it ahead. It'd be pretty annoying to coordinate game night with a friend and have to go admin gambling. There's programs to protect streams that explicitly allow them in-policy, but there are no such exceptions for when you're introducing your friends to the game. Any admin can determine that you VCing with your friend to teach them the game still technically counts as cheating and ban you. Now obviously there's in-house admin etiquette protecting you (overruling other admins is a no-no, that's on the headmins) but there is simply nothing protecting players from whatever the first admin that reviews the case decides other than headmin review. (Which, historically, every headmin has ruled with a pretty heavy hammer. See: linked ban appeals in OP)

Would any of you implement some kind of policy that directly includes an exception for teaching new people? I know Maxipat said "they liked the idea that Jackraxxus proposed" but nobody in this thread has actually directly said that they would do anything or what measures they would actually take. Or would you double down on current policy and say that teaching new people is not an exception?

I know that Jackraxxus had something about having VC channels for newer players (and kinnebian mentioned it as well) - If you are proposing something like this, how exactly would the implementation work? Would an admin be sitting in the VC channel with them? (And if so, do you honestly think that players would prefer using this program over just "doing it in the back alley" and skipping having some random person butt into a personal VC? If not, what's the point of not just letting them VC in a personal call?)

Additionally, as TheRex kind of brought up, you CAN interpret the current rules as "streaming the game to ANYONE at all" - As a sort of bonus question, would any of you be willing to introduce policy to give protections for streaming to private circles wherein you know for a fact nobody is actually in the round? Sometimes I stream ss13 to friends in outside circles that have never heard of ss13 before.

[kinnebian]

Metacomms fucking suck, cheating takes out a lot of fun from the game especially for others, but using them to help a new player and not cheat is ok imo, just don't play in that round and stay in VC to help the new guy.

Im with Rex on this one, 100% agreement.

A little confused about these responses. You say that metacomming to help a new player out is an exception but you say that you shouldn't play in the round. What exception is being made here? Do you think that being in a VC with someone that's not playing in the round counts as metacommunication?

I'd like to elaborate, but the idea is mainly Jacks and DrAmazing's. I would reccomend reading their threads [DrAmazing's is from last year]. I suppose providing a space we can see for people to help out their friends or newer players is a lot easier and cleaner to manage than people doing it the 'backalley' way like youve mentioned. Admins wouldnt need to sit in on the voice chat at all, its not very complicated. It would be trivial to check whos in-game.

Just to reiterate- I'm not pushing for an active implementation of it. I'd support and help it if it happened, but I wouldn't lead it myself.