Remove Whitelists

[NoahKirchner]

Shalom gamers, now that I have finally fixed my forum password I can return to making rambly arguments for a shitposty 2d shooter rp aliens game.

As far as I am concerned, the entire whitelist /system/ is completely and undeniably retarded. Unfortunately, it is a necessary evil to, as has been stated a good number of times during this debate, prevent roles with extreme mechanical abilities being played by someone who will ruin the round, who will ruin another player's round or who will abuse what has been granted to them to powergame or metagame or what have you. However, I think a genuine and serious look should be given at the role of whitelists, at what constitutes a good or bad application and on the idea of having a whitelist council.

First, I think there is a very important distinction between the story you write during the application process and the ability to roleplay, because roleplaying is not about developing a narrative completely on your own, instead it is about your ability to realistically and interestingly react to situations presented to you by other players. Roleplay, and by extension the storytelling on the server, does not happen in a vacuum, so to me it has always seemed pointless to write a story to prove anything beyond linguistic ability (which is admittedly important). I think that a much better approach towards the application process would be to have the applying player concoct a backstory, to construct a character like you would on any HRP server with aspirations, personality traits, et cetera. If this is sufficient, have the council team throw writing prompts/situational prompts at the applying player to test their ability to respond to roleplay situations where they are not entirely in control. This system is also not perfect, obviously, because I am a retard, but I think it is a better system than having people write narratives for roles that really have little to no connection with narrative writing.

Now, regarding a whitelist council, the entire system seems broken and needlessly convoluted to me. Why do people keep advocating for democracy in video game communities as if they are trying to run a government? I think it is rather blatantly obvious that people who are elected to whitelist council positions are not done so because of their dedication to weeding out whitelists or because of their RP abilities, but because people like them OOCly. While frequently the ability to RP, dedication to CM and OOC likeability are traits all shared by the same people, the idea of electing someone just to curate whitelists which should (in theory) be done objectively seems pointless. I recognize that there is a need to take some administrative duties off the staff team and I am glad that is being done, but elections just seem entirely like a popularity contest - something which should probably be avoided. I don't see a reason why you cannot just have one or two appointed staff or psuedo-staff going through whitelists instead of convening on applications as if they were matters of state, truthfully it looks like LARPing. Hell, even the old idea of having people vote on commanders was kind of dumb, because it appealed only to favouritism, so I wonder why that system was removed but this one was implemented.

That is all I can think to sperg out about for the moment.

[Emerald Blood]

I think a world where anyone can play predator is what we need. Consider it accepted.

[ThatOneDeveloper]

So again, if it's just competency that whitelists weed out. Even a timelock that warrants actual playtime would be enough.

It's not just competency, it's dedication to the role. That's why a timelock doesn't work. A timelock would never work for a role like CO, and definitely not Synth or Predator.
There are three kinds of timelocks, and none really help here:

Locked by playtime: Bad idea, especially since each whitelist is for a specific specialization (CO is leadership, Synth is support, Predator is combat). Baldie McBaldFace the PFC can roll for synth given enough time if we used a timelock system. A synth requires knowledge of engineering, chemistry, surgery, medicine, and requisitions. Predators need to understand the lore incredibly well and RP well. Commanders also need to RP well and should be good at organization and fast thinking. All of these skills can easily be checked through a whitelist application; not so much through an automated timelock system.

Locked by playtime for a certain job/role: Though this would be the best option if we decided to make things timelocked, timelocking is in general a bad thing to have for the roles we're discussing here, as I mentioned below.

Locked by account age: Easily the worst option, a newbie can show up once, come back a month or so later, and then role CO or something. Easily the least-effective way to timelock things.

And timelocks still won't keep the one thing that whitelists were made to prevent: griefers. A Mateba would be a griefer's dream, as well as the ability and authority to toy with the entire marine force. Synths, being incredibly durable, incredibly strong, and incredibly skilled could also wreck havoc. And predators... open to griefers... oh god....

Whitelists are meant for players that shown their dedication to the community, commitment to make the round fun for everyone, and possess the knowledge and skills required to fulfill these roles. If they fail to do this, they get ousted. That simple. It's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction after a bad experience with a whitelisted role and say "REMOVE WHITELISTS!", but it's really not the most productive thing to do. Whitelists are here to stay. If anything, the whitelist application process needs to be changed, not the whitelist itself.

Also, regarding stories for COs: I personally think it's a step in the right direction for CO applications. Previously, CO whitelist applications hinged on how much you were known / how much you were liked in the community, and applications in general were based on the player's community rep (as well as how much you were seen in command roles by other people, which meant if you played during deadpop hours, RIP). Stories are a great alternative way to show your dedication to getting the whitelist, your command style and how your character interacts with others. It also raises the bar for CO applications, which is a good thing.

Anyway, rant over. Gotta study for my AP tests now.

[RobBrown4PM]

I'd be fine with the CO whitelist going away, although not synth unless there is a change to multiple synths per round. For predators, making fewer restrictions but limit of 2/3 preds per round. I think there's too many vague rules with predators, which could be much more concrete. Ex. 'Don't have too much influence on the round.' to '2 T3 kills, 4 T2 kills per round.'

What in the honor code is vague?

[Bishopil]

I think a world where anyone can play predator is what we need. Consider it accepted.

I agree with you 100% Amazing executive decision.

On the contrary, why not just delete marines and make it AvP?

[Justicer3792]

What in the honor code is vague?

With the honor code, it's purposefully generalized in order to avoid marines/xenos metaing any harder than they currently do. It totally makes sense, along with the Predator Rule Clarification thread being private. However it creates this disconnect between predator-whitelisted and non-whitelisted players. So the predator knows 95%+ what to do in every situation, but normal players only know the rough outline. So after players get killed by predators (not fun), non-whitelist players see the difference of details and generalizations, and do a player report. This causes most predators to be pretty passive if I am in a position to judge as a non-predator player.

So create more concrete rules for the general playerbase to see and predators will feel allowed to be more aggressive. I hope that clarifies things, this is mostly from my personal experience with predators.

[Vispainius]

It's not just competency, it's dedication to the role. That's why a timelock doesn't work. A timelock would never work for a role like CO, and definitely not Synth or Predator.
There are three kinds of timelocks, and none really help here:

Locked by playtime: Bad idea, especially since each whitelist is for a specific specialization (CO is leadership, Synth is support, Predator is combat). Baldie McBaldFace the PFC can roll for synth given enough time if we used a timelock system. A synth requires knowledge of engineering, chemistry, surgery, medicine, and requisitions. Predators need to understand the lore incredibly well and RP well. Commanders also need to RP well and should be good at organization and fast thinking. All of these skills can easily be checked through a whitelist application; not so much through an automated timelock system.

Locked by playtime for a certain job/role: Though this would be the best option if we decided to make things timelocked, timelocking is in general a bad thing to have for the roles we're discussing here, as I mentioned below.

Locked by account age: Easily the worst option, a newbie can show up once, come back a month or so later, and then role CO or something. Easily the least-effective way to timelock things.

And timelocks still won't keep the one thing that whitelists were made to prevent: griefers. A Mateba would be a griefer's dream, as well as the ability and authority to toy with the entire marine force. Synths, being incredibly durable, incredibly strong, and incredibly skilled could also wreck havoc. And predators... open to griefers... oh god....

Whitelists are meant for players that shown their dedication to the community, commitment to make the round fun for everyone, and possess the knowledge and skills required to fulfill these roles. If they fail to do this, they get ousted. That simple. It's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction after a bad experience with a whitelisted role and say "REMOVE WHITELISTS!", but it's really not the most productive thing to do. Whitelists are here to stay. If anything, the whitelist application process needs to be changed, not the whitelist itself.

Also, regarding stories for COs: I personally think it's a step in the right direction for CO applications. Previously, CO whitelist applications hinged on how much you were known / how much you were liked in the community, and applications in general were based on the player's community rep (as well as how much you were seen in command roles by other people, which meant if you played during deadpop hours, RIP). Stories are a great alternative way to show your dedication to getting the whitelist, your command style and how your character interacts with others. It also raises the bar for CO applications, which is a good thing.

Anyway, rant over. Gotta study for my AP tests now.

This is it

[ThesoldierLLJK]

I think a world where anyone can play predator is what we need. Consider it accepted.

Ladies and Gentlemen

We did it.

[RobBrown4PM]

With the honor code, it's purposefully generalized in order to avoid marines/xenos metaing any harder than they currently do. It totally makes sense, along with the Predator Rule Clarification thread being private. However it creates this disconnect between predator-whitelisted and non-whitelisted players. So the predator knows 95%+ what to do in every situation, but normal players only know the rough outline. So after players get killed by predators (not fun), non-whitelist players see the difference of details and generalizations, and do a player report. This causes most predators to be pretty passive if I am in a position to judge as a non-predator player.

So create more concrete rules for the general playerbase to see and predators will feel allowed to be more aggressive. I hope that clarifies things, this is mostly from my personal experience with predators.

There is literally nothing in the extended rules that dilutes the game for Marines or Xeno's. Those rules are to help keep pred's in line and from ruining the round with their tech. How this somehow creates a meta dilemma for Marines or Xeno's is beyond me.

[edgardo]

Ladies and Gentlemen

We did it.

Stop shitposting on general boomtard hehehe