User Tag List

Page 7 of 10 FirstFirst ... 56789 ... LastLast
Results 61 to 70 of 93

Thread: roleplaying in modern cm

  1. #61
    CM-SS13 Host Frozentsbgg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Posts
    148
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Reading this thread fills me with a weird sense of deja vu.
    Despite us having this conversation every two weeks, with the same people (CABAL, Avalanche, bancrose, Allakai, Thari and More) banging the nail on the head with where CM roleplay stands and what that means for the player base.

    Half of the issue comes from an ever divided player base arguing about this simply flawed idea of a subjective and intangible roleplay standard.
    We're not gonna come to a conclusive decision about what the best RP is or wether CM is LRP MRP OR HRP. When I say that MRP is this, and people say it's something else, it's obvious it's not a workable guideline.


    Instead, as I've tried to reiterate over the past few weeks, CM is an RP server, and the closest thing definition wise would be MRP.
    You're expected to play a reasonable character inside the CM universe. I see the CM universe as not just the mega depression fest that many who want us to be an ARMA 3 simulator see, and that's perfectly okay. My CM is a grimdark sci-fi universe that has the capacity for individual freedom and expression, while still maintaining our own setting. We're not Fox's Aliens and we've not been since the start. We need to embrace the server and player-driven culture just as much as the Alien's official lorebooks.

    I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect our battle-worn, college frat marines to have the combined IQ of Australian low pop. You're allowed to make jokes and have fun with your friends on CM. This is a video game and setting where death is basically a quick zap and you're back on the feet.

    That being said, there is a line (and for me it at least its quite obvious) between RP and no RP. When you fail to play that character, and you're essentially running around screaming memes and not bothering to make an effort in your interactions with other players, that's when you become a rule violation. Is it sometimes hard to enforce? Yep. But it's my opinion that finding the RP balance is just as important as gameplay balance, and just like gameplay balance, it's a total bitch to do. Grimreaper wanted to test things, we might expand testing or change stuff up as we go. We're trying to find that happy middle ground.

    But at the end of the day, the endless debates going round In circles blaming new players, being toxic at ones who want to RP or not RP, abusing staff for not enforcing standards doesn't help. We need to find quantifiable metrics and standards to enforce, and that's a process that this community needs to be apart of. Roleplay is and always will be a positive feedback loop on both a staff and player level. Individuals making the effort encourages others online to do the same, and putting the effort in makes a big difference. RP Doesn't have to be write a paragraph about all the campaigns you won. It's playing the game, interacting with others and most of all /talking/, whether it be with xeno callouts, Sir/mam's or the million-page essays snooper writes up during briefing.


    We all roleplay differently and it's not something you can force people to do, but making an effort is the first step in raising the RP standards. Even if it doesn't feel like it.
    Last edited by Frozentsbgg; 05-23-2021 at 07:02 AM. Reason: i cant type

  2. #62
    CM-SS13 Host ThesoldierLLJK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    2,771
    Mentioned
    6 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    As far as toxicity goes, a lot of people in this community like to joke around with each other. But at the same time if someone ever says something directly to you that's unwanted or they say something that crosses the line. If it's in game, discord, or the forums please report it. Staff will figure it out cause that's the job we do.

    There's a difference between

    Thesoldier *makes announcement*
    acutecircle: OMG @Thesoldier SHUT UP
    Me: No u

    Versus

    Last round chat: @Thesoldier you suck as a xenomorph, do us all a favor and KYS
    Unhinged retiree boomer man
    Get off my lawn you kids

  3. #63
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2020
    Posts
    201
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Frozentsbgg View Post
    But at the end of the day, the endless debates going round In circles blaming new players, being toxic at ones who want to RP or not RP, abusing staff for not enforcing standards doesn't help. We need to find quantifiable metrics and standards to enforce, and that's a process that this community needs to be apart of. Roleplay is and always will be a positive feedback loop on both a staff and player level.
    You often end up in this loop regarding RP standards and issues regarding it primarily because there IS/WAS a metric to measure it. CM was higher-RP years ago, older players remember it, gameplay videos show it and in-large the playerbase/community acknowledges it. So once that standard or difference in gameplay was established it's hard to get away from it or return to it once you're so far disconnected from it.

    I'm beating a horse fucking dead at this point, but people need to stop blaming new players for being the cause of Low-RP. New players simply join a game and conform to the style of play that is present and will either leave or be kicked out if they don't. New players are largely lower-RP simply because thats what the game currently promotes players to do, shoot, kill and arcade slash your way through the enemy. No level of staff enforcement will change this until the Development shifts to return some foundational support to RP elements.

    CM is currently not a Medium RP Server no matter how many times staff try to claim it is or push that narrative. There has been a systematic degradation of CM's rule enforcement, content simplification and out-right anti-RP standards for years now from high end staff (ie; 4KHAN etc).

    I've been quite open about this for the last couple of years, but the people constantly claiming they're going to improve Roleplay or make changes to the foundation of the game simply haven't. In fact I'd argue that in one breath they claim they're going to improve RP while the very next day posting about how their going to remove safe-guards protecting basic RP elements.

    ie; stupid.jpg
    If you cannot understand why the EORG rule exist in an RP game then there's no way you'll ever maintain standards.
    But to enlighten everyone, EORG exist to allow a round/game to continue incase an existing gameplay element or large roleplay event is persisting despite the round conditions forcefully ending the game. This encourages players to maintain their RP engagements till the very end rather than simply give up and start memeing if they know the round is getting close to end. It's minor safe-guards like this that promote and protect elements of roleplay and the game itself... removing them once again DEGRADE THE VERY FOUNDATION OF THE GAME ITSELF.


    So anyways you end up with the constant debate about CM standards simply because nothing ever changes and the people in-charge genuinely don't know what Roleplay is or how to encourage it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozentsbgg View Post
    Instead, as I've tried to reiterate over the past few weeks, CM is an RP server, and the closest thing definition wise would be MRP.
    CM is so far from a Medium RP server, just by comparison to what it was from 2015-2018 that it's quite ridiculous you could even remotely claim this.

    Honestly I've said this numerous times, but I don't blame the Staff side for how far roleplay standards have degraded over the years. It's primarily a content/dev issue where the game has been so steadily streamlined that background jobs, mechanics and elements promoting RP have been erased. This has bled into the general playerbase who have over the years simply grown accustomed to CM's arcade like gameplay and embraced this style of play.

    Realistically, CM shouldn't even aim for Medium RP anymore. Why not pursue a LRP model, embrace the development and direction the game has taken rather than promote this false narrative that the gameplay itself is somehow promoting higher RP? You'd completely avoid the quarterly Roleplay thread from the minority RP players and you'd be able to move onto easier rule enforcement. My point being, CM is currently a LRP game with arcade mechanics where you shoot aliens and talk shit, embrace this.

    This is exhaustive because I've been crying foul about standards and the direction of the game for years now and I've accepted that CM will never be what I or the founders of the game envisioned.
    I believe everyone's hearts in the right place, but the lack of understanding and experience just leads me to have little faith that the current people in-charge can truly make any changes when they're trying to claim CM is Medium RP currently or that removing EORG is a good idea.


    I've spoken in-depth to TheSoldier about almost all these elements, the rot in CM is top-down and will never be fixed when the head-staff themselves are the very problem to these issues. If you genuinely believe CM is Medium-RP currently or that things can simply be improved by enforcing more rules and removing things like EORG... well congrats you're part of the rot.
    Last edited by Fewher; 05-23-2021 at 07:51 PM. Reason: bunch of edits to be nicer with my vocab

  4. #64
    CM-SS13 Host ThesoldierLLJK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    2,771
    Mentioned
    6 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by Feweh
    If you cannot understand why the EORG rule exist in an RP game then there's no way you'll ever maintain standards.
    But to enlighten everyone, EORG exist to allow a round/game to continue incase an existing gameplay element or large roleplay event is persisting despite the round conditions forcefully ending the game. This encourages players to maintain their RP engagements till the very end rather than simply give up and start memeing if they know the round is getting close to end. It's minor safe-guards like this that promote and protect elements of roleplay and the game itself... removing them once again DEGRADE THE VERY FOUNDATION OF THE GAME ITSELF.
    And I will tell you in my practical experience of being a staff member here for over three years, I've only seen a hand full of instances where someone actually went and committed intentional grief at round end.

    99% of the bans have always been accidental friendly fire because someone was shooting a wall/corpse and someone walked in front of them generating the log. Or it was players were still fighting, got banned, then go to discord and tell the staff member "Hey I was fighting."

    I wasn't advocating removing the rule, but I told staff to start actually investigating it if reasonable, so we would have to stop reversing bans because a marine FF another marine while trying to shoot a xeno or predator.

    As far as "RP Mechanics" you can beat a dead horse, because I can beat a dead horse as well. The only person who can put a gun to the head of a developer and say "You need to make this game more RP friendly" are Nanu or Jamie. That's just the way it is, however I will whole heartily agree the shipside has seemed to have been neglected, and I'm hoping that the developers will work on that again in the future since even at the last townhall it was said they should look into it.

    As far as standards, I've seen this fight for over two years, and it's broken me and the other staff because everytime we try to do the High RP crackdown, we ban a bunch of people and the community just riots over it. The other times we get players who say "I do not roleplay at all because I'm afraid of being bwoinked by the staff"

    It's a video game, and I'm done with the HRP/LRP/MRP labels, to me Roleplay is Roleplay as long as it fits the settings, characters, lore, etc... If two marines want to act like fratboys and fist fight, that's what soldiers do. Now our staff absolutely will crack down on people spamming memes, not fitting the setting, etc... If the CO starts sending command announcements making references to among us, or calling the queen a BIG CHUNGUS, we will step in.

    At the end of the day, I feel it's fairer that we come up with a system that the community wants, because that's who we serve.
    Unhinged retiree boomer man
    Get off my lawn you kids

  5. #65
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2020
    Posts
    201
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Quote Originally Posted by ThesoldierLLJK View Post
    At the end of the day, I feel it's fairer that we come up with a system that the community wants, because that's who we serve.
    Which would largely entail pursuing the current playerbases mindset of an arcade shooter with light Lore elements sprinkled in. I think it's fair enough to say the average player enjoys CM and doesn't care about the "past days" or "higher RP" days. Things can always be improved, but it's definitely a vocal minority who believe CM should be Higher-RP like myself.
    By labelling CM as Medium RP you're essentially crippling yourselves to the prior metric of 2015-2018 as that it the most direct and recognizable relation to what Medium RP was on CM.

    I wouldn't beat a horse dead over the last couple of years about RP if CM was upfront that it was Light RP now. But rather the staffing's position on CM seems to be this large charade that it's higher RP than what it actually is... while simultaneously developing Light/No RP mechanics to add to it.

    So why bother? Embrace the lower standards, set the standards to those levels rule wise and churn out more arcade like content.

    The only thing that prompts these threads, discussions and attacks is in-large the Head Staff making a quarterly announcement that CM is higher standards than what it actually is. Then maybe banning a bit harder for a month, adding a new rule and then completely back-tracking on any large-term changes that'll actually have any effect what-so-ever because Leadership/Management changes so often nothing can be maintained long-term.

    CM is so decentralized in terms of Management that there are multiple people REQUIRED to agree to make the necessary changes. You guys have absolutely crippled yourselves in terms of making radical changes required due to the nature of bureaucracy you've set up with a Host who doesn't play, washing machine of Head Devs, multiple Staff Managers and additional "Dev Architects" just to clog up the wheel even more. My point is that a radical change is required if you want to shift to Higher RP which has never happened in the last two years despite numerous claims it would. This is in-large due to multiple people being required to work in conjunction, long-term and closely together which is near impossible with CMs current bloated bureaucracy.

    Quote Originally Posted by ThesoldierLLJK View Post
    The only person who can put a gun to the head of a developer and say "You need to make this game more RP friendly" are Nanu or Jamie. That's just the way it is, however I will whole heartily agree the shipside has seemed to have been neglected, and I'm hoping that the developers will work on that again in the future since even at the last townhall it was said they should look into it.
    Which has been a systematic problem within the rank structure of CM for the last few years. There is no centralized leadership which puts immense pressure on the "hope" that all 3+ people can agree on the same thing in order to make significant changes that require both Manager, Dev and Staff changes. As I stated earlier, this is something that requires long-term commitment to improve but is impossible to do when those 3+ Head Staff and up rotated out so constantly that you then need to get the next guy onboard with the plan.
    Last edited by Fewher; 05-23-2021 at 09:43 PM.

  6. #66
    Ancient Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2019
    Posts
    575
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    tbh RP standards have been improving with less and less memes and less stuff like LOL, AFK, and other ancryncms in chat.

    Some stuff that still bothers me for RP:
    The tech tree for aliens is just called the tech tree and all and probably can use some reskinning to make it more lore apporite.
    Req being the long string of numbers, 40000 for metal instead of 40k or just 40 abstract points. Makes it hard to talk about req stuff.
    Frontline doctors/combat doctors. Still get doctors just straight up fighting or going to the frontline. TBH doing so means you get patients to treat while not means sitting at FOB dieing of boredom and god forbid medbay itself.

  7. #67
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Posts
    272
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    rp = real plays

  8. #68
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Posts
    262
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    what's a role and why are people playing it

  9. #69
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Posts
    117
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    ssethtide ruined cm

  10. #70
    Ancient Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Posts
    814
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    the game is as RP-friendly as it is. shipside RP, combat side is mechanic, you won't have time to make too much talk just small chat to pass the time

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •