Goonhub
01-05-2025, 08:23 PM
Cool concept and I've advocated for "more varied" mail, I agree with you 100% that now the system's been comfortably in game for over a year that someone enterprising (WICI) could expand on it, so I'm always interested in stuff like this.
I do feel like if people know bad mail is bad mail, you've just put them in the classic awkward position: Is giving this thing I know is bad to someone self-antagging? If you mean more of a QM/Courier-specific traitor item, like something that summons that mail though, I think that could be fun. Especially if somehow mail frauding "bad" mail comes with a harsher punishment. Feels like a funny gimmick for a courier looking to avenge the Greatest Crime Known To Mankind.
Otherwise, it's a random event that means theoretically it's only going to trap rookie players into doing an accidental bad, or people skirting that line of antagonism, or just 90% of the time the mail being returned to sender or people just...not opening mail because now it's a choice between a semi-useful but not gamebreaking item they can usually obtain pretty easily, or a bad thing. Further, bombs are also one of Those Things that people generally, at least to my observation, prefer to be entirely deliberate rather than a chaotic mistake. Mistakes happen of course, but this way I envision places like security and medbay insisting their members don't open mail at work, and ultimately mail becomes more of a hassle than it's worth. However, that's just my guess and I don't actually know if that'd happen, so please don't consider it me saying this is what'll happen, just something I'm personally worried about.
Another way to spin it is if the mail wasn't so much malicious as mischievous. Pranky stuff that doesn't cause lasting harm. Delivering prank-like mail feels a bit more like it wouldn't step over that line and not turn people off mail in general. We like a good prank from time to time. Confetti in the mail, a cartoonish "boxing glove jack in the box" popping out of it. stink bomb mail (though again, that'd probably be too much)
It feels a little bit stick for not much carrot that mail is right now. If mail was good enough to support the occasional bad thing I'd probably feel like this idea could fly, but right now you said it yourself: but there's nothing much to it. This idea turns it to "There's nothing much to it but occasionally a terrible thing happening" which makes me go "Okay I will not bother with mail"
I do feel like if people know bad mail is bad mail, you've just put them in the classic awkward position: Is giving this thing I know is bad to someone self-antagging? If you mean more of a QM/Courier-specific traitor item, like something that summons that mail though, I think that could be fun. Especially if somehow mail frauding "bad" mail comes with a harsher punishment. Feels like a funny gimmick for a courier looking to avenge the Greatest Crime Known To Mankind.
Otherwise, it's a random event that means theoretically it's only going to trap rookie players into doing an accidental bad, or people skirting that line of antagonism, or just 90% of the time the mail being returned to sender or people just...not opening mail because now it's a choice between a semi-useful but not gamebreaking item they can usually obtain pretty easily, or a bad thing. Further, bombs are also one of Those Things that people generally, at least to my observation, prefer to be entirely deliberate rather than a chaotic mistake. Mistakes happen of course, but this way I envision places like security and medbay insisting their members don't open mail at work, and ultimately mail becomes more of a hassle than it's worth. However, that's just my guess and I don't actually know if that'd happen, so please don't consider it me saying this is what'll happen, just something I'm personally worried about.
Another way to spin it is if the mail wasn't so much malicious as mischievous. Pranky stuff that doesn't cause lasting harm. Delivering prank-like mail feels a bit more like it wouldn't step over that line and not turn people off mail in general. We like a good prank from time to time. Confetti in the mail, a cartoonish "boxing glove jack in the box" popping out of it. stink bomb mail (though again, that'd probably be too much)
It feels a little bit stick for not much carrot that mail is right now. If mail was good enough to support the occasional bad thing I'd probably feel like this idea could fly, but right now you said it yourself: but there's nothing much to it. This idea turns it to "There's nothing much to it but occasionally a terrible thing happening" which makes me go "Okay I will not bother with mail"