Goonhub
11-04-2013, 02:51 AM
I played a few rounds lately after a couple months absence, and maybe because I took a break from it all, I noticed some stuff.
You can spend an entire round holed up in yout department without interacting with another player.
While most of the events that bring players together are traitor-created emergencies (huge fire, bombs), or sometimes player gimmicks -although the 20th boxing tournament at the gym has lost all novelty.
It's true that sometimes you want to just do chemistry in peace, but without forced interaction rounds are uneventful for most players.
That is, unless you put a lot of effort into something amazing (hard, and works seldom), or you grief around (bad, when you do it too often).
I think this is partly due to the layout of the station; all the way back to donut 1.
They can hold a lot of players, but spread around and easily insulated.
The stations are big, and every depeartment is clearly separated.
Getting the attention of somebody is hard, usually a matter of screaming over the radio. Intercoms are not used much, in practice.
The best way to get hold of somebody is making eye contact from a window, but many departments don't have workrooms facing a corridor: Engineering, Science, Genetics, Hydro are all behind double doors.
Even though weak points allow you to break into any place, it tends to get people annoyed when you need their cooperation.
Dangerous workplaces are isolated from the main corridors and accidents rarely spill out into key common areas.
Right now there is little reason to drop what you're doing and help extinguish a fire in the engine or in toxins, because they don't spread to other departments or important hallways.
Remember the mixing chamber of devstation, right next to escape, or the donut 1 engine?
Smaller spaces would force people to rub elbows together and work together or have little feuds.
Having places where you can work hidden from sight is good for treachery, but if most of a department work area was visible from a corridor, people could communicate more easily.
The table between chemistry and medbay, or glass windowed electronics, make things much easier than getting the attention of a botanist, hidden behind a large lobby.
Danger work areas could be closer to important station corridors or departments. Dealing with emergencies they cause would bring people together more often and more effectively than player gimmicks that often do not work.
Finally, a smaller station would make people walk around more, and walk more often across low-priority areas.
If the bar was a hole by a main corridor, people would walk by more often, perhaps use it more.
Cogmap does a lot of things right. It has great ambience, many nooks and crannies, clever ways to break into areas, belt hell.
But I think the game would improve by pushing people closer together and force them to deal with each other and their fuckups. Donut1 had many of these characteristics, it would be a good starting point whenever a new map gets in the works.
You can spend an entire round holed up in yout department without interacting with another player.
While most of the events that bring players together are traitor-created emergencies (huge fire, bombs), or sometimes player gimmicks -although the 20th boxing tournament at the gym has lost all novelty.
It's true that sometimes you want to just do chemistry in peace, but without forced interaction rounds are uneventful for most players.
That is, unless you put a lot of effort into something amazing (hard, and works seldom), or you grief around (bad, when you do it too often).
I think this is partly due to the layout of the station; all the way back to donut 1.
They can hold a lot of players, but spread around and easily insulated.
The stations are big, and every depeartment is clearly separated.
Getting the attention of somebody is hard, usually a matter of screaming over the radio. Intercoms are not used much, in practice.
The best way to get hold of somebody is making eye contact from a window, but many departments don't have workrooms facing a corridor: Engineering, Science, Genetics, Hydro are all behind double doors.
Even though weak points allow you to break into any place, it tends to get people annoyed when you need their cooperation.
Dangerous workplaces are isolated from the main corridors and accidents rarely spill out into key common areas.
Right now there is little reason to drop what you're doing and help extinguish a fire in the engine or in toxins, because they don't spread to other departments or important hallways.
Remember the mixing chamber of devstation, right next to escape, or the donut 1 engine?
Smaller spaces would force people to rub elbows together and work together or have little feuds.
Having places where you can work hidden from sight is good for treachery, but if most of a department work area was visible from a corridor, people could communicate more easily.
The table between chemistry and medbay, or glass windowed electronics, make things much easier than getting the attention of a botanist, hidden behind a large lobby.
Danger work areas could be closer to important station corridors or departments. Dealing with emergencies they cause would bring people together more often and more effectively than player gimmicks that often do not work.
Finally, a smaller station would make people walk around more, and walk more often across low-priority areas.
If the bar was a hole by a main corridor, people would walk by more often, perhaps use it more.
Cogmap does a lot of things right. It has great ambience, many nooks and crannies, clever ways to break into areas, belt hell.
But I think the game would improve by pushing people closer together and force them to deal with each other and their fuckups. Donut1 had many of these characteristics, it would be a good starting point whenever a new map gets in the works.