Goonhub
02-21-2023, 10:54 AM
SS13 is a social game. If people aren't willing to do a little give-and-take with interacting with others and doing their jobs...well, why are they playing in the first place?
If you just wanted to grow crops as a botanist and wanted to see a steady progression from your efforts, you could just play Stardew Valley. If you wanted to make a colony in space with an atmospherics system and the potential to make wacky gizmos, you could just play Oxygen Not Included. If you wanted to experience that sense of discovery found from hunting for secret chems or A-Zone locations, play a good open-world game without a guide or wiki. If you want to kill people in space...well, you've got a lot of options for doing that, and a bunch of them have more lively multiplayer scenes than Goonstation does. And let's not kid ourselves; even given the immense amount of love and effort put into polishing this game, it is ANCIENT, and hardly one of the highest-performance or smoothest experiences you could have. There are thousands of games that outclass Goon's branch of SS13 on individual aspects of game design and performance, and give better singleplayer experiences compared to each of Goon's departments.
SS13 is interesting and special because of its interlinked systems and interlinked departments and all of the other people engaging with them, not in spite of it. I'd dare say that people engage in their own special projects (instead of fixing the hull breach in medbay) because they want to eventually be able to show them off to people, and probably not for the innate satisfaction of doing it.
Long story short, I'm a co-operation first, niche projects second kind of person. Thankfully, as a botanist, those things can go hand-in-hand, since a lot of your produce can end up helping the station meaningfully in one way or another. Anyone that doesn't want to be beholden to the demands of a certain department can just play as a staff assistant, or buy the Space Diner Patron Spacebux purchase and screw around in space. You'd be surprised with how much you can get done on your own with the tools left scattered around the station + the fabs + the debris field, if you are content with being antisocial for an entire round.
If you just wanted to grow crops as a botanist and wanted to see a steady progression from your efforts, you could just play Stardew Valley. If you wanted to make a colony in space with an atmospherics system and the potential to make wacky gizmos, you could just play Oxygen Not Included. If you wanted to experience that sense of discovery found from hunting for secret chems or A-Zone locations, play a good open-world game without a guide or wiki. If you want to kill people in space...well, you've got a lot of options for doing that, and a bunch of them have more lively multiplayer scenes than Goonstation does. And let's not kid ourselves; even given the immense amount of love and effort put into polishing this game, it is ANCIENT, and hardly one of the highest-performance or smoothest experiences you could have. There are thousands of games that outclass Goon's branch of SS13 on individual aspects of game design and performance, and give better singleplayer experiences compared to each of Goon's departments.
SS13 is interesting and special because of its interlinked systems and interlinked departments and all of the other people engaging with them, not in spite of it. I'd dare say that people engage in their own special projects (instead of fixing the hull breach in medbay) because they want to eventually be able to show them off to people, and probably not for the innate satisfaction of doing it.
Long story short, I'm a co-operation first, niche projects second kind of person. Thankfully, as a botanist, those things can go hand-in-hand, since a lot of your produce can end up helping the station meaningfully in one way or another. Anyone that doesn't want to be beholden to the demands of a certain department can just play as a staff assistant, or buy the Space Diner Patron Spacebux purchase and screw around in space. You'd be surprised with how much you can get done on your own with the tools left scattered around the station + the fabs + the debris field, if you are content with being antisocial for an entire round.