Official(?) Alcatraz Station Discussion

[NateTheSquid]

does anyone personally know arborinus. go knock on his door and scream

[Drago156]

Maybe we should get the ectoplasmic goggles and find Arborinus

[warcrimes]

ok, i've set up an office chair and some candles, now what

[Drago156]

Grab the Oujia board and more candles, also go abduct the chaplain and bring em here!

[warcrimes]

there are cops everywhere and I need a lawyer please reply

[pizzatiger]

I only exist for this map

[Arborinus]

It was around 2013 I first found Space Station 13, at first /tg/ station. It was an amazing game to me, and I wondered where it came from. I discovered that Goonstation was the origin of "the code" and began to play that more and more. It was also when I first thought about this map and drew up concepts.

2015 was a year of many big changes in my life. I graduated high school and my few friends disappeared into the wind. I went through some medical complications that changed my life forever. As if it wasn't bad enough, I decided working at a dead-end customer service job would be what was best until I figured things out.

I found myself alone and unsure what to do with my life. Goonstation came up more and was one of the few escapes for me. Seeing people play together and work together to make each other happy in that whacky game gave me hope when life seemed horrible. I researched and found the forums and learned about the amazing people on the Goonstation team, admin or not. These people were behind all the crazy admin events, the code, and I learned something even cooler: I could literally just talk to them! I began to lurk the Goonstation IRC.

I am an incredibly awkward person with no social skills so it was very difficult to even log in to the Goonstation IRC. When conversation did come up I tried to meekly add a few words. As the years went on it became apparent no one knew who I was or really cared about me. This could also be chalked up to the rise of Discord around this time, but let me moan. Despite this, seeing a message pop up on my phone during work from the people I held so highly in my mind gave me a bit of joy each time. The one person to ever really talk to me was Marquesas, a former coder. I was so happy that someone actually said hello to me, and we talked about Hearthstone a lot. But that was apparently a problem. I never really learned the details but he was sort of laughed at for always talking about Hearthstone and eventually left the admin team, leaving me alone once again.

I became obsessed with the "goonstation community" and I really wanted to be a part of it. I had forum.ss13.co up on my phone at all times and I swear I've read almost every word up to 2017 back and forth. I made lackluster goofy sprites trying to match the spirit of the game, and some hacky code patches that I sincerely hoped would make someone happy and laugh. I became a mentor and seeing so many people vouch for me made me really happy. One year I decided to make the "Clown Car Collection" hoping to garner some attention. I played it during rounds and had some prominent people come and be impressed by it. But still no one really spoke to me. Like a lot of forum threads, mine got some replies and were left to rot.

Maybe at one point I had a silly little notion in my head that being part of the Goonstation team would be one of the most amazing things in my life. I watched others rise up, some choices being a little questionable in my mind but maybe it was jealousy. Somehow these people were having conversations and socially worked their way up the ladder and I had no clue how they did it - I sure never saw it on the IRC. I continued to make sprites, patches, etc hoping maybe someone would notice me. I hyped up this map despite never really working on it much hoping maybe that would get someone to know my name.

After some self-searching I found that I didn't care about getting attention for my actions on the web. What I really, truly cared about was the people I played with in the game that I had been ignoring in favor of the IRC/forums. I really wanted my content to reach them and make them happy. If I were to ever become an admin, maybe I could have made even more people happy. At the risk of sounding self-important, I tried my hardest to make people smile but never take the credit. I found quirks in the code, silly methods, all sorts of crazy things that I would play out for people each round, hoping to make them smile. A part of this was sharing those silly glitches I found with others. Passing the power in their hands and seeing them screaming and farting away gave me a lot of joy. One day though, a freakin' STATUE was put in the game in honor of a player partially using a method I found and shared, an ultimate testament to my SS13 career going by completely ignored. I didn't mind though, as long as I made that occasional player that entered my little shop of horrors happy.

My biggest goal now was to finish my map - if the usual random crowd I cared so much for were able to play on that, it would be really great. The years went on and the people I hung out with in the dirty back alleys of the code faded away as the resident Cleanbot worked its way through. The sharp corners I was raised on were all becoming smoothed out and my motivation to play, at this point somehow still strong, began to fade. SS13, to me, was a big pile of janky code that somehow worked and the ridiculous ways you could move through it were what made it so much fun. But the game was slowly becoming far from this.

So I stopped browsing forum.ss13.co every day, and I stopped sitting in the IRC all day. And I feel a lot better for it. I'm not sure how many people will really ever see this post or even care about it, but it feels really good to finally let that out, I've been sitting on this for like 4-5 years now. Maybe some time I'll play some SS13 again, and see you sometime.

I feel bad for disappointing people, and so I am going to share my goonstation folder. It probably has some weird extra code and sprites in it, I didn't really check it. But the map is in there, I used to call it "asteroid station". It is unfinished and if anyone feels like completing it, they can.

tl;dr: Pity me for never striking up a conversation with anyone. Due to feeling ignored my entire goonstation career I lost all motivation to make this map. The file(s) are in my goonstation folder.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tb6v42wmmglg9f...on.7z?dl=0

[warcrimes]

This map is the map that got me hype enough to crack open DM and make it love me. 
I've drawn a lot of inspiration from it and from shit that you've done in the past, and your name has always been this kinda shadowy semi-defined goliath in the back of my mind. 

I've still got touches to clean up on my map, but I want to open this thing up and push it over the hill. It absolutely deserves a shot at rotation

[Adhara In Space]

This map is the map that got me hype enough to crack open DM and make it love me. 
I've drawn a lot of inspiration from it and from shit that you've done in the past, and your name has always been this kinda shadowy semi-defined goliath in the back of my mind. 

I've still got touches to clean up on my map, but I want to open this thing up and push it over the hill. It absolutely deserves a shot at rotation

im not great at mapping but i would love to help realise someone's aspirations of making people happy and will happily contribute to a group focused map polishing thing <3

[Recusor]

hey good post Arborinus, hope things work out for you! Would be good to see you online again at some point.

[Wisecrack34]

I've always kinda considered you one of "The higher tier" dudes who sit on mount olympus and throw code lighting down at us plebeians to milk us for joy, guys like supernorn or wonk. I hope you pop in from time to time, I'd hate to lose another conscript to the dreaded "Real World" :P

[ZeWaka]

Maybe some time I'll play some SS13 again, and see you sometime.

You're a cool dude Arb., I miss seeing you around.