Originally Posted by
Niick
As a veteran Predator and to a lesser extent, synth, I tend to play in bursts of constant activity and then take a break for a couple months at a time.
Everytime I look into the whitelist chats or whitelist announcements, I see examples of behavior that never would have passed two years ago. It's like all whitelisted players have lost their standards and greytide like everyone else.
Earlier in CM's history, it was aspiring to be a MRP server, that is, providing a realistic and immersive atmosphere to allow for the people who want to roleplay to roleplay, while having a easy low-bar for anyone who doesn't care as much to just play the game. You only need a normal looking name, to keep OOC out of IC, and not metagame, and you were good to go. Especially if you were a nameless xenomorph.
Whitelists were established for powerful roles like Predator so that only trusted community members could use them and exude higher roleplaying standards than the rest of the server. All predators would act like actual predators from AVP lore, adhere to their honor code, and as trusted community members, try not to upset the balance of the round, but instead enhancing it by interacting with the two factions whenever the combat came to a lull.
The Predators were never designed to be a third faction with it's own win conditions. They were supposed to be Antagonists in the traditional SS13 sense. They don't exist to provide enjoyment for themselves, rather they're there so they can interact with other players and enhance their rounds. Marines would feel the thrill of being hunted or the reward of being rid of the shadowy predator, while xenos could feel the same thrill and satisfaction with the added bonus of being able to create the rare predalien if they were skilled enough.
However, nowadays I hear of predators acting like clowns, griefing the factions instead of behaving like a yautja should. This happened in the past too, but any instances where a predator was acting strangely would be harshly punished, and the whitelist as a whole always seemed to have a lingering atmosphere of "Don't fuck up or you're gone."
Staff should really be less lenient of whitelisted players not taking their role seriously, especially predators.