Goonhub
01-23-2022, 04:25 AM
I appreciate and respect all of the effort that went into this event from the Admin team. Nations takes a lot of planning and preparation, and then a lot of ahelp answering and log checking to keep things on relative track. The amount of effort you folks go through to make events like these for us to play is amazing, and thank you for that! But with that being said, this event wasn't good, and this was not because of the Admins, but because of various factors leading it to be doomed from the start. A lot of these problems have already been stated, but I want to give some practical examples of how these issues impacted the round for me personally.
For the round, I played as Evelyn, my QM character. The goal for me personally this round was to amass Engineering a lot of wealth and go around to traders to sell various wares I collected from salvage operations into space, and this was a similar goal shared by most QMs this round, which explains why when stuff started going REALLY badly in Engineering, most QMs either cryo'd out, or bailed on Engineering as a whole and just wandered around and vibed with other folks that also left their nations. Engineering and the round as a whole was really fun for the first 60 - 90 minutes. Engineering was cooperating and interacting with each other, which is very uncommon in normal rounds on the RP Server, but the first issue I caught onto very quickly was the player count, especially in Engineering. Engineering by far being the largest department, it also had the greatest number of disparity among players. Some folks wanted to chill and make the nation stronger through funds, and goods and services, some folks wanted to chill and feed the Singularity and make it stronger, some folks wanted to amass weaponry, some folks wanted to barricade the Engineering hallway, and some folks just wanted to go to war with Sci super early because they took over Tech Storage. This also isn't mentioning Engineering comms going a mile a minute and being absolutely impossible to communicate on effectively with the 20+ players all shouting over each other about various topics and various tasks, and shouting for folks to start fights with Sci or start fights with someone else. It got to the point where I was just ignoring comms altogether.
Along with the disparity of players in Engineering all wanting to do different things, the fact that in the Summit, heads of staff were encouraged to not wear their headsets meant that there were long stretches of time where Engineering had absolutely no contact with their leader due to summits often lasting 30+ minutes. Due to this, Engineering had no clear cut overall nation goal set out by the CE, and everyone that wanted to do something, did it without consulting the CE or their fellow nation members, completely disregarding the negative impact it would have on other nation members, and other players from other nations. For example, the Engineering hallway, which is a Public Hallway a lot of folks use, being barricaded lead to moments where Peacekeepers simply couldn't get folks to Medbay on our end of the station, and this was made worse when the doors that were part of the barricade were BOLTED for some reason. I do not blame the CE or any of the head players for what happened, as they all still did fantastic given the situation and I know they tried keeping things on track, but simply put, if the heads of a nation are going to be unreachable for a very long period of time, things are going to go down hill really fast.
For me, the round started going fully downhill when Engineering was declared a Rogue Nation when we backed the Civilian Nation, and our CE outright disappeared for a long period of time and I still don't know where they went, leading to Engineering having to vote for a new leader, which resulted in a three-way tie and EVEN MORE disparity and chaos. The declaration of Engineering being rogue was the first time a lot of the players in Engineering were made aware of this, and also didn't agree with, which in turn resulted in a lot of members of Engineering leaving, either by Cryoing out, or just going solo and trying to transfer to another nation, which is what I tried to do. This was IMPOSSIBLE to do because, as per the rules, in order to transfer nations you had to take part in a UN summit, which at the time was impossible because tensions were too high and summits weren't being held. This lead to a lot of refugees just wandering the station without any purpose and sorta just waiting out the round timer, which is how I spent the last third of my round, or they cryo'd out. I was practically begging to switch nations and being told I couldn't at the time, so I asked for Security to grant me sanctuary, which they obliged, but then I shortly decided to leave and went on to do some small scale RP with other disgruntled former nation members, which was a personal highlight, so thank you to everyone that RPd with me here. In turn, the round ended with me, and a bunch of other disgruntled players having a slumber party in Sec, and then heading to Botany Maint to hotbox Omega Weed together and die.
A lot of solutions to these issues have been given, but I'll add my own thoughts to them too.
For events of such a scale, a playercap is necessary. There were WAY too many players, with a good chunk of them not being really RP focused, or folks that just joined from the hub seeing that it was one of the top servers at the time and didn't even read the rules of the round. I understand and respect that we want to include everyone that we can in an event, but it is simply not feasible to expect 100+ people to all RP and behave, especially in an RP heavy event like Nations, and I don't think its feasible for Admins to see absolutely every rule break when there are that many people on the server, but I could be wrong because our Admins are super powered. A pre-round sign up would be beneficial for this, which Yellow has suggested so props to them. Allow those that want to take part to sign up, and then when the Whitelist joins, remove the whitelist to fill out the remaining player slots. A player count of around 80~ I think would be the best for a round like this.
A new way to hold summits would also be useful, but I think maybe the best way to fix this would be to do Ikea's idea, and allow for departments to have TWO Head slots, with one being an ambassador that goes to the Summits, and one being a departmental manager that stays in the nation. That way, when the Ambassador is away at a summit, departments still have contact with their departmental manager and can still get the greenlight and overall goals from them, so nations don't turn into chaos due to lack of communication from the head.
And lastly, transferring nations NEEDS to be made a lot simpler. Waiting for a summit to happen is just not feasible, and it would be made a lot more simpler if to transfer, you just had to seek approval from the head of the nation you wish to transfer to. Maybe fill out some paperwork to make it more official, and then the leader of the nation can hand it to the Captain so they know when a transfer has taken place. Would definitely save folks from just wandering the station without a purpose when their nation goes to hell.
Sorry for the long post... I just had a lot to get off my chest about this round. Again, I want to reiterate that Admins did fantastic, and the new way the traders worked was also fantastic! You take goods your department makes, and trade them for goods of equal value. Its quick, fun and simple, and doesn't give Cargo a ridiculous advantage. The main issues all stemmed from Population issues, lack of communication with the head of each nation, and the really difficult process we have to attempt to go through in order to switch nations.
For the round, I played as Evelyn, my QM character. The goal for me personally this round was to amass Engineering a lot of wealth and go around to traders to sell various wares I collected from salvage operations into space, and this was a similar goal shared by most QMs this round, which explains why when stuff started going REALLY badly in Engineering, most QMs either cryo'd out, or bailed on Engineering as a whole and just wandered around and vibed with other folks that also left their nations. Engineering and the round as a whole was really fun for the first 60 - 90 minutes. Engineering was cooperating and interacting with each other, which is very uncommon in normal rounds on the RP Server, but the first issue I caught onto very quickly was the player count, especially in Engineering. Engineering by far being the largest department, it also had the greatest number of disparity among players. Some folks wanted to chill and make the nation stronger through funds, and goods and services, some folks wanted to chill and feed the Singularity and make it stronger, some folks wanted to amass weaponry, some folks wanted to barricade the Engineering hallway, and some folks just wanted to go to war with Sci super early because they took over Tech Storage. This also isn't mentioning Engineering comms going a mile a minute and being absolutely impossible to communicate on effectively with the 20+ players all shouting over each other about various topics and various tasks, and shouting for folks to start fights with Sci or start fights with someone else. It got to the point where I was just ignoring comms altogether.
Along with the disparity of players in Engineering all wanting to do different things, the fact that in the Summit, heads of staff were encouraged to not wear their headsets meant that there were long stretches of time where Engineering had absolutely no contact with their leader due to summits often lasting 30+ minutes. Due to this, Engineering had no clear cut overall nation goal set out by the CE, and everyone that wanted to do something, did it without consulting the CE or their fellow nation members, completely disregarding the negative impact it would have on other nation members, and other players from other nations. For example, the Engineering hallway, which is a Public Hallway a lot of folks use, being barricaded lead to moments where Peacekeepers simply couldn't get folks to Medbay on our end of the station, and this was made worse when the doors that were part of the barricade were BOLTED for some reason. I do not blame the CE or any of the head players for what happened, as they all still did fantastic given the situation and I know they tried keeping things on track, but simply put, if the heads of a nation are going to be unreachable for a very long period of time, things are going to go down hill really fast.
For me, the round started going fully downhill when Engineering was declared a Rogue Nation when we backed the Civilian Nation, and our CE outright disappeared for a long period of time and I still don't know where they went, leading to Engineering having to vote for a new leader, which resulted in a three-way tie and EVEN MORE disparity and chaos. The declaration of Engineering being rogue was the first time a lot of the players in Engineering were made aware of this, and also didn't agree with, which in turn resulted in a lot of members of Engineering leaving, either by Cryoing out, or just going solo and trying to transfer to another nation, which is what I tried to do. This was IMPOSSIBLE to do because, as per the rules, in order to transfer nations you had to take part in a UN summit, which at the time was impossible because tensions were too high and summits weren't being held. This lead to a lot of refugees just wandering the station without any purpose and sorta just waiting out the round timer, which is how I spent the last third of my round, or they cryo'd out. I was practically begging to switch nations and being told I couldn't at the time, so I asked for Security to grant me sanctuary, which they obliged, but then I shortly decided to leave and went on to do some small scale RP with other disgruntled former nation members, which was a personal highlight, so thank you to everyone that RPd with me here. In turn, the round ended with me, and a bunch of other disgruntled players having a slumber party in Sec, and then heading to Botany Maint to hotbox Omega Weed together and die.
A lot of solutions to these issues have been given, but I'll add my own thoughts to them too.
For events of such a scale, a playercap is necessary. There were WAY too many players, with a good chunk of them not being really RP focused, or folks that just joined from the hub seeing that it was one of the top servers at the time and didn't even read the rules of the round. I understand and respect that we want to include everyone that we can in an event, but it is simply not feasible to expect 100+ people to all RP and behave, especially in an RP heavy event like Nations, and I don't think its feasible for Admins to see absolutely every rule break when there are that many people on the server, but I could be wrong because our Admins are super powered. A pre-round sign up would be beneficial for this, which Yellow has suggested so props to them. Allow those that want to take part to sign up, and then when the Whitelist joins, remove the whitelist to fill out the remaining player slots. A player count of around 80~ I think would be the best for a round like this.
A new way to hold summits would also be useful, but I think maybe the best way to fix this would be to do Ikea's idea, and allow for departments to have TWO Head slots, with one being an ambassador that goes to the Summits, and one being a departmental manager that stays in the nation. That way, when the Ambassador is away at a summit, departments still have contact with their departmental manager and can still get the greenlight and overall goals from them, so nations don't turn into chaos due to lack of communication from the head.
And lastly, transferring nations NEEDS to be made a lot simpler. Waiting for a summit to happen is just not feasible, and it would be made a lot more simpler if to transfer, you just had to seek approval from the head of the nation you wish to transfer to. Maybe fill out some paperwork to make it more official, and then the leader of the nation can hand it to the Captain so they know when a transfer has taken place. Would definitely save folks from just wandering the station without a purpose when their nation goes to hell.
Sorry for the long post... I just had a lot to get off my chest about this round. Again, I want to reiterate that Admins did fantastic, and the new way the traders worked was also fantastic! You take goods your department makes, and trade them for goods of equal value. Its quick, fun and simple, and doesn't give Cargo a ridiculous advantage. The main issues all stemmed from Population issues, lack of communication with the head of each nation, and the really difficult process we have to attempt to go through in order to switch nations.