[PR] Contributor Rewards accessible to all

[Silent Majority]

I personally agree with Zamus comment.

I've played ss13 a long time. An extremely long time. I've played on Baystation where having weird hair could get you ostracized and I've played on tg where I once saw a cat person fly skeleton marry a zombie vampire moth

"Being weird" or different just, to me, creates aesthetic choices and enables different interactions and, gasp, rp opportunities.

I play a purple haired one eyed no armed space colony born person with a non standard name.

I also play her as very boring, and act as a straight man

Docroe Donk pockets is a clown who generaly is calm, level headed and reasonable.

I think the ideaology of thinking you need to carefully monitor character appearance is semi flawed in a game where "sentient butt that stings you so you can fart" or ..well. the Grillnasium, exists.

Since the option as people say allready exists why would preventing it being automated be a problem?

People don't do it because it takes time to do it. I have to spend every round looking for an eyepatch which takes time and effort. And sometimes minimal rp. I don't mind it. But i can see why others wouldn't wanna commit to it. There isn't always a genetist ir someone that knoes how. And the color values are done via dials.

But, i don't think itll hurt anything without it either.

I'd just like to see what happens

[WhatMG]

It's a big choice, regardless of how you look at it. I've seen many cases of stuff relating to customization get turned down because it was considered to be against the style or intent, and this going through would throw all of those back into question; Just what IS the style or intent?
FWIW I also don't think whether or not it shuts down someone's gimmick should be a deciding factor. Any change that removes cosmetic options is going to do that.

[Lord_earthfire]

Since the option as people say allready exists why would preventing it being automated be a problem?

People don't do it because it takes time to do it.

And that's a good thing, because it keeps it special. It has a kind of novelty it will loose if you begin seeing these chsracters every round.

The time needed is a gate that keeps the novelty of the character configurations that don't feel right for a common crewmember, but are novel and interesting when they happen. Kinda like someone using the agent ID/evil mustache to make themselves a wannabe super-villian or funny gimmicks like that.

It's a spectacle when people make an interesting character and put everything into it for a round. It's an "yeah sure, you're special besides thst biblical accurate angel right there *shrug*" moment when you see the 5th character of that kind within a round and continue to see them every other round (i'm exaggerating here to get the point accross, i know it will not get used to such a severe degree).

Personally, i feel like most whacky stuff on station, it should have some kind of rarity, antag-exclusiveness and/or effort to aquire it.

[Retrino]

dont really understand the problem with elf ear'd people or "doctor-" names in a game where you can quite literally explode into a pile of butts as a feature. people can jump into fryers and be made into living human sandwiches. the nuclear reactor can be powered by glowsticks. asteroids hit the station and turn everything in the area into jean with "j" style names. but someone wanting to make their oc have a unique feature or gimmick is the immersion breaker...? lumping people into a category of "wanting to be the main character" for not using a traditional name is just kind. what. by all means have your own opinion on the subject, but it seems like dragging a niche player group through the mud just for the sake of it

[Soleil]

I've held off from adding my opinion because I didn't have a particularly strong opinion either way, but I really don't want the PR to fall through. I'll add my voice to the yay pile. Many good points have been brought up by both sides, especially Minty. Something I'd like to point out is just how limiting and restrictive the current skin colors are.

My heart goes out to all the roach enjoyers over the abysmal choices, but even humans have it bad. I personally am not going to mind over the PR going through at its current state as I really don't think much will change in the long run, people want to look like people and appearance is really important. Maybe the first few weeks or months will have people going wild on colors, but its not going to last. Even the Saurian wave died off eventually.

But if the PR does have to die, can we at least heavily expand the available skin colors? For humans its really not that wild to imagine people have some pale blues, grays or reds considering the other craziness going on. We have green plant arms for roundstart, would it really be that harmful to the setting and immersion for some people to be really really pale and bleached, or oddly green undertones, or someone having desaturated red skin?

[Cal]

The bright skin colors are really wild and ugly tbh. Not a fan of them at all.

Is this still about the contributor medal or just the skin colors because I'm confused now.

Totally fine with making the medal attainable automatically by submitting a PR, maybe you can claim a sticker in game or something like the event winner ones.

Really don't want those eyestraining skin colors in. Might be ok with them clamped.

[Fuppy]

Just wanna start out by saying that this PR not going through wouldn't affect me personally since I don't plan on using any of the colorful skin tones myself, but it really wouldn't bother me any to see some colorful people walking around. Like others have pointed out, this is a game where we already have odd and fantastical things. So I don't think it'd be an immersion deal breaker for me if I saw someone with neon pink skin standing next to the space wizard that is hanging out at the bar and asking for potions.

[Lord_earthfire]

lumping people into a category of "wanting to be the main character" for not using a traditional name is just kind. what. by all means have your own opinion on the subject, but it seems like dragging a niche player group through the mud just for the sake of it

If that's what stuck from my comments, then i think i written my comments in a way that comes along as needlessly agressive, which was not the intention at all. The point was mainly to emphasise that we somewhat should try to keep the visual coherence of the crew in check, even if we don't have a HRP server. I'll think i stay out if the discussion because i derayled it quite a bit that way.

[mintyphresh]

Is this still about the contributor medal or just the skin colors because I'm confused now.

As with most forum conversations, we've gotten pulled in multiple directions a little. The conversation here is mostly about the skin tones themselves; I don't think many people would want Contributor if there were other ways to get these skin tones round-start. One mentor (I think GallowsCalibrator?) mentioned that they valued the medal as a badge of honor, a symbol of the hard work they've done for the codebase rather than a carrot on a stick for them to chase. Frankly, that's the way I think Contributor should be, and I love the suggestions Mordent posted on page 1 for alternative rewards, like the mug and pen.
---

Because I think we've gotten sidetracked a little, I'd like to summarize my understanding of, and opinions on, the conversation as it exists right now. This involves restating what other people have already said, sorry.


Immersion in the Setting

I don't think the problem people have with roundstart skin color customization (RSCC) is really about breaking immersion or breaking setting, although those are the terms being used. I've said this before, but in the long run players will naturally try to fit themselves into the setting, because being part of that setting makes RP easier and better. I'm not sure concerns about immersion or setting can even be brought up for classic, though I'm not a terribly confident voice on that matter.

RSCC also doesn't break the setting from a lore perspective. SS13 is a world where wizards, demons, and eldritch gods are real, people can shapeshift just by touching you, and inter-dimensional travel is commonplace; there's a plethora of lore-friendly ways for someone to have an unusual skin tone. But above all else, getting your skin color changed at genetics is fast, painless, and has no effect on your genetic stability; the equipment required to do this can be bought for only 6000 credits, and can be easily transported in a backpack. Even if it's not commonplace in the rest of the world, as NT employees it's not unreasonable to say that a character would have easy access to genetic services.

Style & Characters

I don't think adding RSCC is about helping with visual distinction, either. As Mordent said, there's more than enough options already, especially with how robust the three-layered hair system is. The only mutrace I have trouble telling apart is pugs, because they can't access wigs and have only four body colors.

Being able to fake Gamma Ray Exposure is another big issue with this PR, but unlike the visual style complaints, it's fixable. I intend to mess around with the sliders some more and see if I can prevent that from happening; maybe a future PR can change what visual effects Gamma Ray Exposure gives so that the restriction can be removed.

Lizards' Uniqueness in Skin Color

Solenoid made an excellent point regarding this by comparing it to wigs on non-human mutraces. Humans are the only mutrace that naturally grows hair on their heads; I'm getting tired and have much to write, so please look at this excerpt from their post:

Firstly, on giving other mutantraces the ability to get colorful skin, I don't see the problem personally on taking the "unique" thing of lizards and giving it to others. Wigs are pretty much identical to this, the "unique" thing of humans(hair) was given to other mutantraces at roundstart via a trait. I don't think we've ever seen any human players complain about this though, because it's clearly just a way to increase customization and personalization that would otherwise require an awkward IC exchange. Realistically, we could've had wigs be a "go talk to a human and convince them to lop off their hair at roundstart" thing, but it was recognized that this felt bad and required a lot of convincing and in-round time to make work.

In-round skin color changes

I don't really get why gating stuff behind tedium is such an accepted practice here, outside of "because it needs to be gated somehow." Sure, yes, forcing players to bug Genetics for their custom skin tones will dramatically reduce the number of players with custom skin tones, but this is because you are forcing players to take a major inconvenience to receive a minor benefit.

Stuff like becoming a monkey, getting a clone scan, or preparing extra oil in chemlab, all make sense to be balanced by time costs -- since they afford the player tangible benefits -- but with how unimpactful skin color is on gameplay, it isn't worth it whatsoever to spend your time, and genetics' time, every round to get that modification. I know of at least 2-3 "monkey characters" that get changed roundstart, and I've even seen a "dwarfism character" that would specifically request the dwarfism gene be researched, but I'm not aware of a single character that goes to genetics for an unusual skin tone every round. Compare this to a clone scan, which takes way less time than a skin color change, affords a huge advantage to the player doing it, and is simple for a newbee to perform, but there's still rarely see more than 10% of the crew scanned in unless an announcement's gone out.

This is why I believe adding more in-round ways to change your skin color is NOT an adequate way of addressing the desires of people who wanna play as a blue guy. Unless it's similarly easy-to-use and convenient as the clothing booth, it won't be worth the effort to change your skin color that way.

In conclusion, going to get yourself changed at genetics every round gets old quick, and isn't fun. And as Reggie Fils-Aimé once said, "If it's not fun, why bother?"

(If the intent is to prevent Genetics from becoming a roundstart customization hub (which I would strongly support), requiring some sort of progression or resource investment to unlock those paths would probably be an appropriate change.)

Identity of the Game

The best argument against this PR was made by Flaborized in page 2, regarding the visual identity of the game. I've truncated the post a bit to try and keep the post size small... You can find the full text by clicking on the arrow next to the start of the quote (though I don't think I took out anything important, promise!)

I do not particularly like letting all humans pick whatever colors they want. Color ranges are part of the visual identity of many species in the game and I think letting people (or roaches) have the full range diminishes this aesthetic quality a lot. Lizards can have technicolor skin because they're chameleon-like; if we added this more generally to generic people, we'd be somewhat taking away from this Cool Thing lizards have that makes them stand out as unique. 

The Boring Basic skin-tones also, for lack of better phrasing, make them look Human. Blue skin looks like an alien because humans don't have blue skin. Other mutantraces in the game unfortunately do not exist in real life so we can imagine them looking however we want without it being Weird, but I think there's still some value in having a cohesive look for them, at least on roundstart.

I don't really have an qualms with people using genetics or the tanning booth to achieve these looks since then they're uncommon, but if everyone could have them as a trait I think it'd worsen the look of the game.

To fully explain my interpretation of the point she makes, I'd like to relate the situation to that of another game with a similar, but far more egregious and exaggerated, problem: Team Fortress 2. At launch, TF2's art design was meticulous in setting, gameplay, and tone, to give each mercenary a unique look and feel that fits in with the backdrop of the maps TF2 takes place in. As time went on, and more cosmetics were released, it became easier to make loadouts not adherent to this artstyle.

16 years later, TF2 videos have thumbnails like this.


I'm not trying to say that Flaborized's concerns are that this one PR will cause SS13 to be as stylistically dissonant as TF2-- there have been thousands of cosmetics added to TF2 since its release, so this has been a slow drift away from the game's original style --  but the line of reasoning, as I see it, is similar. Making custom skin tones convenient enough to be worth getting will undoubtedly change the way the game looks and feels. But I don't think that making RSCC available to everyone walks down the path that TF2 did with its cosmetics, for these reasons:

1. Stronger lore basis. Unlike the TF2 cosmetics, which can be out-of period for the 1960s or the product of magic & curses that aren't really part of the gameplay outside Halloween, SS13 is a scifi setting where the implements that can achieve RSCC are real, physical objects that are used every shift. It's set in a world with plenty of other ways to get strange skin tones, too, like radiation blasts, wizards, and the like. See the section on "Immersion in the Setting" for more elaboration on this point.

2. Fewer gameplay implications. While not synonymous with "visual identity," visual distinguishability is an important aspect for gameplay; In TF2, the high number of cosmetic and color options can let you disguise yourself with colors that look like the other team's, which can cause much confusion. In SS13, if you can't tell mutraces apart, such as telling skeletons from humans (this one is hard when you're in a hurry!), you could end up making a mistake when treating them. Being able to tell mutraces apart at a glance has a ton of value. Below, I've put a neon purple saurian next to a human of the same color (note that I did not check that these colors were allowed by the saturation limits mentioned earlier):



I don't think mistaking one for the other is very easy.

None of these bullet points, however, account for personal taste. Flaborized's argument against RSCC is, well, about flavor. The retrofuturist world that SS13 lives in allows for a wide interpretation of what should be possible, and what things should look like. Rickety-looking Soviet spacecraft and landline phones live alongside beverage replicators, phasers, and spaceships powered by black holes.

I personally think that the viewpoint of humans having to have "normal" skin tones is too biased towards the "retro" part of SS13's visual style, but I also think that full, unrestricted skin colors is too biased towards the futuristic, semi-magical part of SS13's flavor-- which is why I'm such a strong supporter of the "clamped" values I posted here earlier.

[Flaborized]

as a last-ditch attempt to salvage something good out of this, would a compromise in allowing this on classic and not rp be adequate? because i am going to feel real fuckin bad if this ends up effectively disabling a few friends' fun gimmicks.

I don't personally like dumping it from people who already have it, even though I would've ideally rather never given it out. Once you give people an element of customization, it's like pulling teeth to remove it, and it feels kinda mean especially for something that's (currently) niche. That said, I don't think classic and rp need to have different aesthetic sensibilities and all of my personal arguments have been made with classic in mind, cuz I have limited experience on rp. But I don't see a good reason to split them on something like this. I realize this is at odds with me agreeing that it sucks to have this be exclusive to contributors, but that's why my ideal would've been not to have added it at all :pensivefrog:

nested lizard uniqueness quote that I don't want to fully quote here because forum formatting is annoying me but you can read it above -flaborized

Similarly, I don't really *love* that most species got simple access to the primary thing that makes humans stand out, but I wouldn't want to cut them either for above reasons re: it being pulling teeth. Without trying to make the thread about wigs (they were discussed far too much after they were added) while explaining why there's a discrepancy between "oh it'd suck to give away lizard's unique Thing" and "mutantraces got human's unique thing"; it was merged without really having a big discussion like this because it wasn't presumed to be a controversial sorta thing, more than one dev who didn't want it didn't see the PR as it came in or didn't realize it extended to more than just humans, and since we had already merged it we didn't remove it cuz as above stated twice, removing customization options is akin to pulling teeth. This is not to say that all or most devs didn't like it/don't like it, but I think there would've been discussion -like this thread- on it if it was labeled "adds hair to mutantraces" and given its own thread. This is also a simplified retelling of what happened since I mainly just want to clarify why I'm arguing this point while we have something in-game that contradicts the idea pretty strongly. The only reason I bring this up is I basically don't think wigs are a good example of the kinds of things we'd want to add for customization, even though they're in the game and there are absolutely no plans to remove them atm.

Something that contributes to the long drawn out back and forth of this discussion is that if we add it, it's realistically probably not gonna get pulled back out. Expanding customization is very committal and in general people will be much angrier if you take away something they have than if you never give it to them in the first place.