Antares 1.0 and the Future

As someone who played on the sever ages ago, without much serious roleplay since, perhaps my opinion is outdated. I will try to keep it as short and sweet as I possibly can. I've read through the entire thread, and it seems to me like most issues lead back to one central idea, which would be quality control.

If I may speak about the whitelisting for a moment, I think it could really benefit and improve the quality of roleplay on the server to require the characters to be thought out. I know that the common complaint here is that Kaz and pals will have a lot on their plate. Yes, they likely will. Although I think it wise to perhaps put a little faith into the man who runs this website. If Kaz thinks it can be done, then it will merely be his own undoing if it cannot. I think that everyone knows what is at stake.

The whitelisting process would keep crap off the server. Without being rude, I think everyone here has met their fair share of garbage characters. I think this is on account of only having to be approved once, after which you are given free reign. From personal experience, my namesake character was the one I got approved with. I rarely used him, and he mainly existed to allow me to circumvent the moderation team, as around 50% of my characters would likely have not been approved for a variety of reasons.

Lore and setting would automatically become stronger with more developed characters. Cloning is rendered a moot point because players won't be shit. Allowing players to spawn their stuff will be fine since they won't be full impervium nutjobs.

I'd also like to touch on the law, since that is an interesting topic. I like the idea of the law. It makes players really think about the way they are using their characters. I'd imagine law enforcement is a sort of omnipresent idea like in American culture, where it might not be immediately near you, but it sure as hell will get to you quickly. Frankly, I don't really think you even need the constant staff involvement. Perhaps the forums could function as a sort of crimestoppers deal, where civilians drop hints and tips about criminal activity. Just a thought really, but I personally think that if a character plans on doing something illegal, like swinging around a gun and shooting, that they better expect that they will become wanted.

 

Lore: I kind of like the current Lore, but any blanks or parts that are imbalanced are viable points to change...
Thing is; most of the lore doesn't necessarily influenec Antares all that much since the frontier is a good distance away from the main starbound lore universe. There's no giant horde of Florans that are punching Hylotls silly, or Apex being enslaved by a corrupt government (does anyone really play Apex?) ...

When you're talking character balance i feel people should generally balance out their characters with flaws and assets. I've been trying out another Starbound RP server, and i liked their mechanics (EVERYTHING was roll based, there's persuasion skills, combat skills, medical practise skills etc etc etc), it allows characters to have some depth to them without being imbalanced, it's a great help and it adds something, in my own experience. I think making base chararcter sheets to represent YOUR character's assets and flaws would be nice, making a system around it with dice rolls wouldn't be necessary but it would avoid people playing races in a way that is true to the lore, in the sense that suddenly even the most illiterate Floran is able to reverse engineer a killer robot because the lore claims they somehow can, as well as people RP-ing as a Novakid who sees something cool, gets obsessed with it and just out of nowhere creates a masterwork, in whatever field he'd like.

(Didn't like the other server's modpack and lore, but the mechanics in general seemed interesting enough; a timeline, a time-conversion system where 1 irl day = 3 in game days; a modified lore system (which i didn't like very much because they introduced two custom races: Avali and Faunis(?) and they had the weird idea that Glitch were somehow partly biological, as in a Glitch player could choose to get healed by either medical expertise (doctors) or repair (engineers etc)) The roll-based combat- and skill system was neat though because if you want to play as a strong, combat type of character you have to invest your skill points in those areas, making you bad at other things since you didn't put points in other things. There is also some sort of levelling system in place, which would make sense in a way that a newcomer shouldn't be able to just 1v1 a veteran character on the server...)

TL;DR:

• Current Lore = good, but incomplete/subject to change.
• Balancing characters : Character sheets, rolls or just templates to help enforcing balance and cripple powergaming.
• Newby characters vs Veteran characters: some kind of character progression system? => Actual characters > Alts

 

Damn that's a lot of words I wish I had the discipline and time to read.

I'll say something short for the sake of hipstertude:
Cloning - Good to have to prevent permadeath, should have consequences. An example of such a consequence would be a shorter lifespan, which cloning can tend to cause.

Whitelist Characters - I think this is super important. For my characters and faction (which lived for like 6 days) I have been leaving it up to the community to give input on the character/faction. That way mods aren't overtasked and stuff, and everyone can pitch in their varying amounts of cents.

I also think we maybe should have a limit on alt quantity. Keeping your character list down is good because you can focus more on increasing the quality of your RP. Quality over quantity.

I like the idea of our own personal lore thing. Chucklefish hasnt really delivered in that area, and I think we're just holding ourselves back by trying to stay within the meager allotment we are given.

An economy would be nice, but I dont see a way of making it work while simultaneously not holding people back RP-wise. I don't really know what would be best here, it seems like trying to choose the lesser of two evils: a tight economy or creative freedom.

 

Lore:
-Up for discussion.

Setting:
-Up for discussion.

Law:
-It should be an imperfect medium of protection to provide a dynamic process of development and meaningful conflict.
-The staff should not have a faction exclusively for themselves.

Cloning:
-No.

Economy:
-When possible, any item worth having (food/fuel/weapons/scrap/armor/aid) should be subject to in-game event creation, discovery, or purchase. A general idea of a maximum starting money amount would also be good.

Whitelisting:
-Fine as is, but some applications need more consideration.

Starting Out & Default Equipment:
-Up for discussion. I don't think it's necessary.

Colony Construction:
-More in-game events around their creation would be nice.

Faction Representation:
-Up for discussion, and it bleeds into the idea of a staff-run faction and the power it would hold to enforce a zone of peace.

Vehicles & Powerful Weaponry
-I found the idea of construction and non-combat vehicles interesting.

Forums
-Up for discussion.

Magic
-I chuckled.

 

Why am I here? Don't ask hard questions.
Breakdown time!

Lore
Creating our own system of Lore is an admirable, but dangerous decision.
You get a snowball effect with removing or editing, as new lore get's released based off what they had previously.
Our own additive lore, however? To act as a bridge for some grey areas, and enhance what CF already has?
That's dandy, because we can drop that without massive rewrites to cram our canon into CF's, and not have a massive spiraling web of "this part that part and the other".

Setting
Antares acting as a watershed frontier for freaks and bums (with guns) has always been alot of fun, but; limiting technology on an individual basis is a fool's endeavor. We don't have the resources to really implement such a strict control.
I don't have a magic fix for this one, because we already have the best solution for what we've got; remind the player base to not be OP jerks, and if anyone crosses the line, report them to Staff.
Yes, it /is/ mildly annoying to have a RP fragged by some looney wearing a Power Armor inside a Mech made of Nanobots? But that's people. It's far more realistic to handle it case-by-case than to try and constantly do that with every player, ever.

Law
This, in a round about way, is a guaranteed stable RP hub and IC repercussions for lawless elements, so it has every recommendation I can give. (Is it just me, or is playing a criminal really boring if you can just get away every time, your big heist forgotten by the next day?)

Cloning
I'd really like this idea, but it runs into the problem of; people are going to tell the story they want to tell, and play how they want to play. In essence; the players who want permadeath are going to play like there's permadeath, and the players who want mortality to not be a huge factor are going to play like it's not that big a deal. I mean, it /is/ the future; some well-off folks are going to treat their body like a car; something important and expensive, but insured in case anything happens so they can get a new one.

Progression & Economy
Personally? I came from a server that had a strict no-mods rule, and this was back before things like Starcheat and other item modification programs were very popular.
/And it was so much fun/
There was always a market for goods from mining, exploring, and farming. The setting was kinda similar to Antares; a frontier sorta place, so bartering goods was based on individual need instead of an intrinsic universal value (1 Obsidian = 100 pixels).
But; that's not the world we live in anymore. Item duping, Starcheat, the dozens of ways to create items, we can't just ignore it.
Best I can figure? Don't remove the mods, but limit who can use them, if you really want to do this.
Builders, Faction Leaders, Merchants; people certified by staff to be trusted with some self control to not abuse the crap out of these.
But I really don't see that working out.

Whitelisting
If you instate a few more Reviewers, this is a great idea.
It always kinda bugged me that if someone had one good character concept, they got a free pass to throw any character they felt like into the mix, regardless of how interruptive or ridiculous they were.
But that's my personal lense; I had a bad habit of getting super excited about a new alt, playing them once, realize there wasn't much material to them, and dropping them forever. Some oversight could help people get this kind of feedback before the debut.

Starting Out & Default Equipment
Hrmmmmm.
I like the motivation behind this, but, as Narf pointed out; it doesn't really work with the limitless kinds of characters you can make.
What if we added an "Equipment/Property" section to the Character App? Especially if we're considering reviewing each character individually.
Have the player outline exactly what the character owns, and be ready to provide sound reasoning if questioned.
People aren't forced to have the same default gear as everyone else, and the Staff get's oversight on what's being brought to the sector.

Colony Construction
Create a "Colony Application" similar to the Character Apps.
How this Colony exists, what sets it apart, what niche does it fill, ICly and OOCly.
Again, we need more reviewers, but that's a given if you want more oversight and control.

Faction Representation
This is sound, in theory?
But, limiting players to one Faction is only really useful if this were a largely Faction-PVP server, which it isn't.
Things like spying are IC, and if OOC knowledge is used, hey, it's in the rules. Sick the Staff on them.
Yes; I agree with Factions being /just/ the PCs in them. It simplifies /alot/ of problems.
Faction wars were a cool idea for awhile, but, it inevitably turns into dreaded Voidfests and Forum Blame Game.
We just need to scale back the importance of Factions; removing any IC benefits outside of what the PC's can personally bring will be a good start.

Vehicles & Powerful Weaponry
This is a server stability and "Don't be an OP jerk" issue, so of course I'm all for it, if it's clearly defined.

Forums
These all sound good, as far as suggestions?
The Security revamp seems like a good call; have a drop down menu of what kind of report (Griefing, OOC Abuse, Other, etc.) similar to tech support websites would help the Staff handle the situations quickly and efficiently.

Magic
My input is a lvl. 20 Fireball.

 

Lore: I really don't know. It would be good to fill in the blanks but would make it harder for someone to join the server.

Setting: This has annoyed me a little bit, I signed up to play a scifi version of terraria, and now I am in the Wild West using pickaxes instead of lasers. My thoughts/opinions aside, special events to introduce powerful technology would be pretty cool. I have one I am thinking about, because I want to build a space station in an Asteroid Field... And of course I would need the appropriate excuse/lore behind it to make it happen.

Law: No. Absolutely not. I quite like the fragile peace of Antares, not knowing when someone is gonna fly a heavily armed drone into Taranis or break out a rocket launcher in the middle of an inn. If there was no conflict, there would be little roleplay.

Cloning: I would be in favour of this, but it would have to have HEAVY consequences. Maybe require everyone to set their character to Hardcore mode, having them drop all their items on death?

Economy: We should not restrict the use of item spawning mods. This sets up the theme for a character or a colony. What would we do without custom weapons, or easy access to decorative blocks? Sure, there is abuse, but it doesn't directly affect roleplay. This is not "Run-around-and-mine/kill/build/die" server, it is a roleplay server, and so the stats of your character do not matter as much, except in PvP. I think we should face the fact that we will never have a true economy in Antares.

Whitelisting: This would definitely help, but only do it if you and the staff can handle it! I don't want to wait 3 days for a character application to be approved.

Default Equipment: Well, I don't think we should have defined default equipment, as it kills the setting/theme for a character. BUT we could have guidelines on what items you should start with, IE One weapon, one stack of 500 blocks, x amount of food, and a set of T1 racial armour, stuff like that. People could follow the guidelines and choose items appropriate to their character.

Colony Construction: I think colonies should be allowed to spring up overnight with spawning of resources, BUT they should not be able to do that and then get abandoned two days later. A similar system to Factions should be set up, where at least 3-5 people have to be willing to oversee the colony, and the colony has to be inspected by a Moderator for IC-lore-holes and appropriate building materials and such. This would prevent situations like we have now, with only two (I think) colonies that aren't overrun with bandits and criminals.

Faction Representation: I pretty much agree with everything said here. No metagaming or throwaway characters.

Vehicles: Maybe a Jeep or a Car, but no Tanks or APCs or Mechs, those are out of the question.

Forums: No suggestions, sorry

Magic: I LOL'd.

 

Dropping by after inactivity for my unpopular opinion:
I'm all up for cloning. It just depends on how you play it. I see cloning as a ticket to a mature topic about mortality and the elegibility of someone being "a real person". I like seeing it as a moral debate and it's really fun to play, I myself played as a clone (Shaun) and an AI (Remy) myself.

What I'm NOT up for is people using cloning as a get out of jail free card. Cloning should be, ICly, controversial and should be played that way, not like a "Hey, check out my new Ferrari I just got from insurance fraud!", imho.
Sure, the cloned can think "Eh, it's just a vessel." But that doesn't mean everyone else should feel the same.

TL;DR, Cloning? Good if done maturely, bad if done as an excuse.

 

I agree, with the maturity issue. On the last server I played, we had a similar issue with cloning. Eventually we decided that it would be an interesting way to provide RP. For my character, it was particularly interesting to accuse all of the clones of being fake, soulless husks who I could debate with. But then we had one person, no names, who decided that cloning was awesome. And he would just do crazy things like a terrorist and get cloned every time he died. That's about the time it lost its charm.

 

Lore
Chucklefish has continued to disappoint me with their lore. It's fine for a singleplayer game, but it brings up many stereotypes and other problematic canon that would be difficult to balance in roleplay. As well, there's just simply not enough of it. There's too much left up to interpretation. I propose that Antares create it's own lore, based on CF's lore, but selectively discarding the harmful parts and filling in the gaps ourselves. Any new lore released by CF would be invalidated unless we choose to incorporate it. The Community could help us to create this new lore and allow Antares to have a better foundation for roleplay. I'm looking for agree/disagreement on this idea, not necessarily proposed lore. That discussion would come later.

I agree. Perhaps create lore for each race explaining what each race is doing in the Antares frontier or other parts of the galaxy "npc" wise.

Setting
Antares is intended to be a frontier society. This means that it's essentially the Sci-Fi equivalent of the Wild West. However, I want to make sure that this is a setting that the community even wants. It's interesting because it gives a reason for new characters to show up. It's a promising land of opportunity, so to speak, rich with adventure and resources. However, I've noticed that from time to time, players tend to give themselves technology that wouldn't be appropriate for a frontier society. I personally feel that technology should be gradually introduced to the frontier, perhaps through events. I'm looking for community input on these topics.

What are our options here?

Law
Antares has been completely lawless, aside from the occasional player faction trying to instill law - which as far as I know, hasn't worked too well - so that's why I'd like to introduce the idea of a Staff-backed Law faction, something to provide characters with a safe haven protected by terrorists and bandits (such characters would have to request with Staff for permission to attack, and such events would be supervised). Players shouldn't have to put their characters in danger just because they've chosen to play on their server. Outside of this protected Space, Antares would still remain the Lawless and Dangerous place that a frontier should be. Now, the Staff-backed Faction would only play a guardian role, protecting a small haven (star system) and serve as a plot device for various events. There shouldn't be any concerns of power abuse or interference with roleplay. Thoughts?

I like this. I mean it would only be a section of the universe that would be more or less safe. The idea that moderators will also use this haven to make rp events for the community as well also sounds promising.

Cloning
I'd like to introduce an idea for cloning. I think that it's very unfair that a player's character can be permanently killed whether they like it or not. This is why people hide behind our consent rules, even though they're not supposed to. It's evident that the consent system is flawed, but that's because permadeath is flawed. Permanent Death should only be performed at a player's wishes, as a Staff requirement, or to serve an event or other plot purpose. Cloning is a canon technology, and while we can ignore it, I feel we're only hurting ourselves. I think cloning should be brought back with heavily penalizations, and that outlaws and violent characters should lose their right to clone. This can be ICly justified by the Law faction I mentioned earlier, if we give them the purpose of providing cloning services for Antares residents. I'm looking for feedback on this ideas, and suggestions for penalizations if we were to implement it.

I can't say I'd ever part-take in cloning, it doesnt interest me personally and I'd feel my character would lose value were they just a clone. My perspective aside though, I'm ok with this idea. Like TD said, long as it's handled in a mature fashion I don't see the problem. Permadeath should always be in the hands of the roleplayer.

Progression & Economy
It's very unfortunate that CF has decided to take the quest-based route for progression. While I can understand why they've done this, it doesn't suit roleplay very well as it defines various things about a player's characters as they progress. So I move to void the quests all-together, and find alternative means of progression. My primary question here is, should be restrict the use of mods that allow items to be spawned in at a player's discretion? It would allow easy quest-based progression, but it would allow the abuse that it already rampant and common throughout Antares. I'm not advocating an absolutely strict economy, but I do think that things should have more value beyond the sentimental value we place upon it through roleplay. I'm looking for advice and suggestions.

I've played both with mods and without. My experience role play wise has always felt better without. This could give reason for mining companies to exist, asteroid fuel stations, weapon and gear crafting. I am all for game mechanics, as I've seen first hand the pros and cons of both sides. Ultimately the community will sway one way or the other( mods *cough* lazy way), even if a rule was passed that no spawn mods were welcome on the server its true there would still be those who would manage to find a way. I don't know, i just feel servers like "ilikebacon or galaxy citizen are better suited to those who'd prefer to half fast the game. Jump in with rubium or "durasteel gear"(the accepted norm no one complains about) and shit talk on a hub oocly. Anyways, I will always lean towards a mod restricted server. Antares had a decent run during quite a wishy washy year of democracy. I think its time so rules be put down. The communities shouldn't have as much power as it does.

Whitelisting
We currently employ an account-based whitelisting system that allows players to create characters at their whim. It also allows more sneaky players to create characters entirely different from the one they submitted during their whitelist process, in an attempt to bypass our restrictions or out of genuine innocence and ignorance. I could enable character-based whitelisting, which would require players to apply for every character they wish to play. This would allow us, as Staff, to have much more quality control. We'd also need a rather large team of Reviewers to handle the heavy load, however. I'm looking for feedback and opinions on this idea.

Yes, alts are annoying. People create alts for various reasons sure, but one common reason they are created is because the current character they've developed is boring or has nothing interesting going on. So they opt for bringing something new and fresh, sometimes it works.. sometimes they end up stuck with now two boring characters, so a month goes by and they make another.. and another.. and another.. its lame. I think whitelisting characters would be the best idea. Sure you would need a larger team of reviewers, but it would be worth while. There is far too many alts flying around, some as throw aways, and others that just collect dust. ( Just wanted to add. Were mods to be restricted on the server this would also help dilute some of the useless and throwaway alts to some degree. The amount of work to progress via game mechanics for each alt would discourage one from making tons. Assuming they aren't feeding spawned items via single player mode.)

Server should be 18+

Starting Out & Default Equipment
I've been mulling over the idea of having all characters start out with a default set of equipment, with some variance. This would be difficult to enforce if we allowed a rampant and free non-economy, so I am unsure if this idea has any basis at all, but I still wanted to present it regardless. I don't like how some players try to bring in heavy weapons or absurd technology to the frontier. In a perfect world, everyone would start out the same and earn their reputation and equipment through playing. However, especially with the 1.0 update, this type of progression will be next to impossible to implement and enforce. It all depends on what CF allows us to do in the back-end. I'm looking for discussions on this idea, based on the assumption that we may be able to someday enforce this realistically.

I think on average yea, we should all start out with more or less nothing. I think if a character wants something else to come with their new character into the server that should be reviewed and agreed upon during the whitelisting of the character by moderators. Want a cool custom ship? Show them? Want to start off with rubium armor and rocket launcher.. why? ("Cause im lazy")

Colony Construction
It seems frequent that a colony will simply appear over night, as a player spawns themselves all the resources they need to construct it. Now, with an item as powerful as the Matter Manipulator, the construction time could be ICly justified - however I still take an issue with the magical acquirement of resources. I'm wondering if we should try and implement any policies restricting colony construction so that colonies don't pop up too terribly frequently, only to end up abandoned. I'm looking for suggestions and opinions on this topic.

I think the way the system is now is fine more or less. Colonies should only exist on the forums if they are populated though. Colonies should be "whitelisted" into the server in a sense as well. Fill a basic application, show proof that it will have residents and some sort of activity and provide some lore or background on the colony.(ie did you build it? if so icly how long did it take you who helped.. explain how you got the resources) (did you icly come across it? [This is how i did it with the Wolves Den which i oocly built])

Faction Representation
It makes me very upset to see players creating throwaway characters to represent the "might" of their faction. Again, I stress that Antares is a frontier society and that the population would be fairly low. A faction isn't going to have a mighty army, or terrifying fleets of ships. I think factions should be a "what you see is what you get" deal and that players should be restricted to one faction, to both prevent metagaming, spying, and false representation. A player shouldn't have 5 alts, each in one faction. A player should carefully choose a faction to dedicate themselves and ONE character to. Throwaways shouldn't exist, even for the purpose of battles, as that just serves to keep the core faction members alive and "powerful". Particularly if we implement cloning, this issue is likely to not be as relevant or serious, but I still think it should be discussed. A "large" faction would be 15-18 players, due to the low population of the Antares Frontier. It's entirely unreasonable to have these invisible armies and ships backing up a faction's "power". You may be wondering that if these policies are enacted, what about previous lore established by powerful factions? I'd like to state that just because something has been permitted in the past doesn't make it okay, it just means it wasn't addressed. Previous factions, I imagine, could keep their previous lore, but would be subject to the new policies. I'm looking for discussion, suggestion, feedback, and opinions.

Throw away characters should not exist period. Rather we bring back NPCs then tolerate throw away characters. Restricting spawn mods, plus whitelisting characters would more or less kill throw away characters entirely. No character would exist without a bio and description, plus they start with next to nothing. Whitelisting every character a rper uses, whether main or not would discourage throw away characters entirely.

Vehicles & Powerful Weaponry
Since Starbound currently doesn't natively support vehicles, and abuse of the drawables system causes lag problems - and as well, I hear, may be restricted with the 1.0 patch - I am of the notion that vehicles shouldn't exist in the frontier. Ships are one thing, but vehicles are another. These planets are small enough that they can be explored on foot, and if/when CF adds vehicles, we can discuss them again then. As well, I think that weapons of planet-destroying capability are far outside anything that would be seen in the frontier. Frankly, it's absurd. As well as nuclear weaponry, or anything with more explosive capacity than a rocket launcher (which would be rare in a frontier, as-is, I'd imagine) would just be too prone to abuse and wouldn't make sense to have in the first place. I'm looking for feedback and suggestions to policy on what to do concerning these topics.

If ships and space ship cruisers exist i don't see how vehicles wouldn't exist.

Forums
The forums have existed as they have for a long time. However, I think they could better. We could perhaps have an IC library, re-vamp the Market section to make it appeal to more than just buying/selling, and perhaps give the Security forum it's own entire section and break down the various types of reports to help bring awareness to the reporting process. I'm looking for suggestions.

Forums could use some revamping sure. Currently i dont have much to say about the forums.

Magic
I just wanted to mention this to clarify any confusion on the subject. Regardless of what CF says, Magic does not exist in Antares. It's unexplained science. If you see a "wizard", they're delusional and messing with forces they have no understanding of. Not looking for input on this one.

The community could never reach a maturity capable of handling anything magic or kinetic related.

 

RIP Playerbase.

 

I'd rather rp with two adults, than twelve 11yr olds anyday.

 

Everytime I try to give an example of a good clone character, I say 'Shaun'.
Congrats you hold the title of only-good-clone-in-antares

 

I disagree... All players should be mature... But 18+ is kinda restrictive... I used to run the belgium section of a wolfenstein enemy territory clan back in the day when i was like 14 because i was rather active and pretty mature for my age. Though if you're gonna set an age limit, wouldn't 16 be a bit better?

 

Inversely to this, not all 18+ year olds are mature. The server's done well to prove that much.

 

How old are you now?

Sure, mature 14 year olds exist. Some even more mature then some adults. They are few and far between though. 18+ doesnt stop 14 year olds from joining this server, its not as if mods are doing background checks. An 18+ server would just deter some of the more immature crowd away, or would put pressure on the younger crowd to act more mature.

Why would 16 be better?

 

No. Because legality reasons. Lie about your age all you want. 12 year old boys going through puberty click 'accept' on porn sites all the time.

 

20

 

oh by the way guys, in case you hadn't noticed: ITS COMING TONIGHT!!!