ASS DAY feedback, evolution, ideas. [Gimme Your Thinks]

[warcrimes]

EDIT FOR CLARITY:
THIS IS ALL HYPOTHETICAL
NOBODY IS STEALING CHRISTMAS
IF (AND ONLY IF) THE ASS DAY RULES DID NOT EXIST, WHAT COOL FEATURES WOULD RECREATE THAT MAGIC?

Ass Day has been an institution at Goon for a while, and is almost a statutory holiday. 
However, we do see some population dips every 13th, and anecdotal evidence would suggest that opinions about Ass Day are as diverse as the people who participate, or choose not to participate in it.

A while ago, an event / feature was run where on Ass Day, the codebase itself changed significantly, just for the duration of the day. Since then, a small handful of features have remained as periodic monthly additions, gone as quietly as they arrived. We called that mutation Ass Jam. 

The one thing that has remained a constant during Ass Days is the relaxation (see: annexation) of most of the rules involving Grife™. You'll find a transcript of the current Ass Day Rules in the spoiler below. 
Spoiler!

Code:

No intentionally crashing the server or causing lag.
No bigotry.
No sexual stuff.
No creepy shit.
No impersonating the admins.
No walling off or obliterating arrivals.
No giving out secret recipes and the like.
If an admin tells you to quit doing something, quit it.
No you do not get an antag token.

That leaves a lot of room for just about whatever. For better or for worster.

A discussion was raised about whether it is time to evolve Ass Day byond what it is currently, and there are many ways to do so. This thread's aim is to lay out the options, discuss and convene with the people who actually matter (you alls, all's a y'all), and develop a monthly event that is more engaging than ever before.

Here's a couple ideas and tidbits of info that might be useful.
1.) Ideally, solutions that directly alter gameplay (i.e. rebalancing, feature addition / subtraction, concrete things, etc) should be championed over solutions that indirectly alter behavior (i.e. changing rules, awareness campaigns, reminders, etc). If possible, try to think in the context of the usual everyday rules and player attitudes.

2.) Our framework for modifying the code based on the day of the month has recently been expanded. That means we can readily swap out maps, icons, gamemodes, entire source code files for the 13th. The sky is the limit when it comes to what you want to see.

3.) The current flow and free for all dynamic of Ass Day can be preserved, regardless of what the result of this thread is, in a hypothetical "Ass Day Classic™" gamemode, to be selected as often or as sparsely as required. Put simply, everyone gets Hardmode Traitor with optional objective to do as they please. As far as the rules are concerned, that's all Ass Day really is.

With those in mind, share with us your experience with Ass Day, Ass Jam, Admin Gimmicks and general 13-ish thoughts. Tell us what you like, what you hate, what you would want and what you'd be glad to see go out the door.

There are no bad answers, only bad coders to implement them.

[AwkwardDryad]

I looooove ass jam. It really makes it feel like a community driven experience

I just tend not to participate in ass days because after a while it's just the same cycle of ghost drones and ttvs

[Urlance Woolsbane]

One of the more Ass-Dayish experiences I've had on here wasn't even on Ass Day. An admin got fed up with Cogmap1 constantly winning map votes, and switched the next map to Trunkmap. I think there's a lot of mileage in resurrecting ancient, half-functioning maps.

[Tribaja]

I have no idea how to implement this or if it's even realistic in any way, but some incentive to be nice and helpful could stem the tide of total chaos on Ass Day that I feel turns away most people from the day and maybe incentivize more people to come play on the 13th.

Something like rewards for healing people or cloning them. Rewards could include traitor items and other fancy gadgets that would otherwise be off-limits for hardmode traitors. Perhaps even a round end vote for the top 3 unlikely heroes of the station which could grant some rewards for the following round?

Oh and I'd be all for disabling ghost drones for ass day since now we've got the respawn arena for dead people anyways. Ghost drones get real boring, real quick.

[Adhara In Space]

ass day makes me stressed and anxious
but i like the idea that its sort of a like, nonstamdard goon experience u know? break into the old stuffx, the unused stuff the unusual stuff, community patches that dont really belong in the actual game but are fun joke content, all that

kinda like a "goon's fair?" showcase of cool stuff, old stuff, wack stuff,

[Drago156]

Going off of what Urlance said, I think seeing the old and dead maps brought back to haunt us on the 13th of every month would be cool, also maybe a map randomizer that randomly selected the map or a random vote option for ass day?

[UrsulaMejor]

I loved assjam as a community showcase. we have a ton more coder savvy community members now and I'd love to see what they come up with.

[Superlagg]

I really liked the first few months of Assday, where the staff really worked overtime to put up cool shitty scenarios that gave it kind of a Treehouse of Horror in Space vibe. Especially since everyone is free to be a badguy and you can't trust anyone. Gotta be some way to automate dumb scenarios without needing to crush the staff's hearts when most of the station just ignores it and strangles each other.

The best assvanilla rounds were ones that ended up with total havoc. Like everything is dark, blown to heck, and anyone still alive is too concerned with not dying to pick fights. Its kinda like how the most organic kind of chaos comes from unexpected extended rounds (when the blobs fall asleep at the wheel) and people end up most at each other's throats despite nobody actually being evil, that the strongest of broliances come from when \everyone\ is evil. Maybe it's an ascended sense of not knowing if they're gonna ice you, and maybe they won't, but you're sooo gonna ice them first if they try to ice you first, I dunno.

Also its hilarious to set everyone to arrest and spam securitrons as the AI while pretending to be dead.

[Adhara In Space]

also what if this is when people did maps that maybe arent destined for rotation but still had a lotta love put into em (not plugging for onion station at all no siree)

[Tarmunora]

As one of those who dips out whenever the 13th rolls around due to the griefy stuff not really being my thing, it would be nice to be able to see the cool community showcase stuff without the (presumably) total grieffest of current ass day rounds.

[Tiggersaurus]

I'm new so have only experienced one Ass day so far. As others have mentioned, random constant aggression isn't My Thing. I try+play in a way to help others have more fun so maybe Ass day just isn't for me. Which is fine

Unsure what to suggest but older maps sounds appealing as does disaster style ones.

[Tewf]

For me, the most fun always comes from things like the Neo Exdeath boss fights, where admins have spawned weapons, turned respawn on and let exdeath/ neo exdeath run wild on the station. It still has a hint of the who can i trust who cant I paranoia from assday but for the most part giving huge hard to miss/ignore goals like a boss fight really brings people together. More so then just simply blasting apart the station or making everyone omni traitor.



Assjam was magical and I would love to see more unique maps like density or the half horizon half atlas monstrosity that was seen last assjam. However, not having the option of normal maps can be annoying so I personally would like to see a fat list of maps, little to no exclusion.


I feel like at its core the rules and feel of assday should not change. If people want peace and quiet there is the RP server or urs dungeon and its only 24 hours, But I do understand that some people want to participate but just aren't violent or interested in violence. I feel like more options like urs dungeon would be really welcome to those people. Give them some portals that let them explore some Azones or some of the cooler areas in game, in the afterlife bar. ( note some admins do this regularly I just mean include the portals when the map generates  )


I do feel like respawn should work similar to the RP server, with a shorter cooldown, say every 5 minutes? you can respawn. No need for admins to turn it on or off. Just leave it on all of assday. I am a huge user and believer in ghost drones, but I would be more then happy to trade the platform where you queue for it, for respawn, 90% of the reason me and other people ghost drone is to get back at the griefers when respawn is off so with respawn on there would be little to no pushback if you just simply removed it.

[TDHooligan]

i usually think twice before playing space station on ass day. for me it's fun as the admins get let off the chain, but having to grab all the stuff you can to prevent getting griefed before participating in an admin event is something i don't particularly care for.

[Skornzy]

Battle Royale should be a common occurrence on ass day. It can break up the round after round stagnation that sometimes happens when the admins take a backseat. Battle Royale is basically assday with more weapons and a goal so why not?

[KikiMofo]

Why change Ass Day? Just put something new on another day.