In-game Username: casilius
Discord username: sleepyandy
Characters you play: Screams-A-Lot, occasionally Screamus Alotus and Squeaks-A-Lot
On average, how many hours do you expect to admin per week: 8-12 hours
Days you are available to admin on: Any day of the week
How old are you? 25
Do you have any SS14 experience outside of Wizard’s Den servers, or any SS13 experience? I have played on RMC and Frontier briefly, but otherwise stick solely to Wizden. No SS13 experience.
Do you have prior administration experience (SS13/SS14 experience preferred, please also post a way for us to verify this)? I do not have game administration experience, but I have Discord/Twitch/Youtube moderation experience! Primarily, I was a Discord/Twitch moderator for the content creator Fanaticalight (1500+ Discord members at its peak), and have been a moderator/admin for other communities with a member count ranging between 400-600.
I have managerial experience outside of gaming as well, and have used these skills when dealing with and deescalating online situations and issues.
I’m not entirely sure a solid way to verify these claims, but here is a link to a screenshot providing proof of my Discord moderation on Fanaticalight’s server: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Have you ever been banned from any SS14 or SS13 servers? Nope! And I don’t plan on it either.
What are you primarily interested in doing as an admin? Ensuring that the SS14 communities stay happy and healthy, primarily. It’s important to me that, while having fun is to be expected, sometimes one person’s idea of fun can be a hindrance to others. Keeping the communities as hate-free and nontoxic as possible is important to me, so to be able to handle and solve issues that arise between players would be a big plus.
That, and being able to assist in taking some of the weight off of the admin team as well. I’ve heard enough stories about admins leaving, other admins being swamped, etc., and it makes me wish that I could help out. SS14 is a beautiful game, and everyone should enjoy it in any regard.
What are you least interested in doing as an admin? Reviewing round replays is potentially the one task I would be the most disinterested in, but even then I’m not against it whatsoever. Sometimes things happen when admins aren’t on, or sometimes things happen when admins decide to play the game for themselves and that’s okay! As someone who enjoys observing rounds just as much as I enjoy playing them, reviewing replays isn’t torturous, but it’s definitely lower on the list of responsibilities I would take up should my application be approved.
Detail Questions
What role do you think game admins serve on our servers?
Game administrators are responsible for a lot, but most importantly (to me, at least), they’re responsible for keeping the communities not only safe but happy as well. Handling ahelps, stepping in when a player is misbehaving outside of the game rules, stepping in when the game decides to not work quite as intended, etc.
As a roleplaying game there will always be at least one thing going wrong, that’s to be expected whether it’s player-driven or otherwise. As a game administrator, to me, their duties and responsibilities are to ensure that each round goes as smoothly as possible for everyone. Communicating with a player to discuss their in-game behavior, responding to bug and glitch reports and being able to solve them, reviewing ban appeals and whitelist requests, running events that create memorable experiences for players that will keep them coming back or even drawing in a new crowd of players, etc.
Why do you want to become an administrator for SS14?
As you guys can probably tell from my earlier responses, the community means a lot to me. Having a strong administrative team reinforces the community! I have seen and had a multitude of very positive admin and player interactions in my time on SS14, and not only has it inspired me, but it’s motivated me to want to be a part of the team as well.
Like I stated earlier, too, I’m aware that the admin team was sparse at one point and is starting to recover. Being able to help and provide another set of hands wherever it’s needed is something that I am willing and more than happy to do.
How do you feel about the current roleplay status on the servers?
As someone who has not played on MRP or HRP servers (aside from very lowpop Frontier, and RMC) I have no opinion on the roleplay quality, but I do have feelings about the current LRP server statuses. My main server as a player is Vulture, and roleplay there is very important to a majority of the community. I have seen and been a part of some very powerful roleplay moments, and they’ve stuck with me. While I have played on Leviathan and Lizard, there was not a lot of roleplay from what I had seen, which was disappointing! Despite them being LRP servers, they are still roleplay servers, and to see most players treading on the border of NRP was disheartening.
Adding on, I do think that MRP servers having NLR and no EORG is a very good choice. It adds on to the immersion, which is incredibly important for a roleplaying game! Nobody likes pulling off a clean Syndicate kill, only to be ratted out by an MMI. Sure, it can be funny or sometimes helpful depending on which role you’re playing, but as the Syndicate agent, it’s incredibly unfun.
Other than banning problematic players, what admin actions do you believe have the biggest positive impact?
Interacting with the community whether through guidance when requested, taking care of rulebreakers and raiders in a timely manner, or running small or large scale events hands down.
Providing memorable experiences like fulfilling a funny Honkmother prayer for example. Of course these are not what I believe to be the magic fix to improve gameplay, but it allows the players to feel like their in-game actions have outcomes and consequences. Having a player-to-admin connection, in my experience, does wonders in reinforcing the feeling of belonging. It provides a safe space for players, which is very important to me when playing a game like SS14. It makes the game admins feel more like real people and less like big, scary users that you should have to tiptoe around lest you make one wrong move. This does not mean, of course, letting things slide should a regular break a rule.
Have you ever had a negative experience in the game or with a game admin? If so what, if anything, would you do to prevent other players from experiencing this?
I have never had a negative experience with a game admin (thankfully), but I have had negative experiences with other players before. This explanation may be a little long winded, and I apologize in advanced.
One experience I had recently was while I was playing as a mime. Of course mimes aren’t able to speak or write, and so it left me in a very frustrating position. I had gotten crit by a critter or something similar and brought to medbay, and while I was being healed a cadet walked up and stole the captain’s hat I was wearing (the captain themself gave it to me as a gift). Since I wasn’t able to communicate outside of emoting, I decided to follow the cadet to security to try and get it back, or at least convey my issue to another security officer.
Neither of those things happened despite my “gestures to the cap cap then his own lack of hat” pleads, and the cadet ended up magdumping me with his pistol in front of the warden and a few security officers. I was not armed, nor was I hostile, and yet the cadet shot me to crit, and kept shooting until the other officers dragged me away. I never got the hat back, sadly.
In this sort of situation I, as a potential admin, would have stepped in and ahelped the cadet to get his reasoning for his actions. Gently, of course, since I wouldn’t want them to feel like they’re being berated or backed into a corner. Since the mime was non-hostile and otherwise following the rules, it’s clear that the cadet was in the wrong, and so getting their feedback and thoughts would be the most important step to take.
Giving the cadet a gentle reminder that non-lethals exist and that magdumping someone instead of speaking is unnecessary escalation would happen once they respond, as well. Players with the power that security has is a responsibility, not a privilege, and they should act as such. Using a lethal weapon and trying to kill someone for seemingly nothing can ruin a person’s experience completely, to the point where they may not play again, so it’s important to correct the errors in an attempt to prevent them from happening in the future.
Have you ever had a good experience with the game or a game admin? If so, what was it?
I have had a LOT of great experiences with the game and game admins alike. There are so many that I would exceed the character limit 10 times over if I were to describe them all. From admemes to admin experiments and prayers being answered, there’s a lot.
One of my favorite experiences I have had while playing SS14, though, was a small scale admeme that only myself and two other players saw (at first). I can’t remember who was all involved on the admin team, but I was a musician-turned-salvager working with a cargo tech-turned-salvager, with a salvage borg. We finished up a shittle and got it flying when we both noticed something on the mass scanner reading as ‘Weird Signal’. Of course this got us curious, so we went to investigate.
When we arrived, at first it was seemingly nothing until we started to see the visual effects of a singularity nearby. This was concerning, given that we were next to an NT cruiser wreck and nowhere near the station. We go in to investigate further, and what we found was absolutely hilarious (and in-character traumatizing). The admins had spawned a singularity AND a tesla, both of which were RGB, then surrounded the containment field with corpses and ritual circles. All three of us were freaked out and got out of there as soon as we could, then once evac was close to arriving, an admin had sent a game announcement that said something cryptic like “There are eyes that have seen things that were not meant to be seen”. The singulo-tesla then spawned at CC, so everyone else could see it too.
Another time, I was playing as a clown on Plasma. An admin spawned a Behonker that was quickly killed by security, and because of this, I decided to roleplay that the Honkmother was going to be angry that the station “killed one of her children”. I joined up with the second clown and we decided to pray at the altar, asking for the Honkmother’s blessings. The admin online spawned in a HONK mech for us, as well as a horn attachment, and a syringe gun loaded with syringes full of honk. We then plagued the station with endless honking, and it got to the point where the Captain either faxed CC or called on the red phone. ERT was called, I was arrested, and I got to have a dramatic roleplay with ERT on their shuttle until evac arrived.
Scenario Questions
Scenario 1
It is the start of the round. There are 60 players on the server. The game mode is traitors, traitors have not been selected yet. There are three players who decided to observe the round instead of join it orbiting you. Two of them are encouraging you to “do something funny”.
The first thing I would do is to reassure them that, should the round get stale midway through, I may intervene to spice things up. The next thing I would say is something along the times of, “it’s only the start of the round, let’s see what the players get up to”. Admin intervention isn’t always required to have a fun round, and the last thing I would want to do is to impede on the in-game players’ entertainment should someone or a group of people have something planned.
If the spectating players continued to encourage me to “do something funny” I would gently reinforce my earlier statement of “let’s see how the round goes first” instead of outright ignoring them or saying no.
Scenario 2
This scenario takes place on LRP. The Head of Security has decided to coup the Captain. The Head of Personnel agrees with the Head of Security and has taken up arms in case it is necessary to aid in effecting the arrest of the Captain. The Captain is hiding with the Quartermaster in the cargo shuttle to avoid the Clown who has stolen the captains saber as a non-antag. There are five people named in this scenario. Please describe what actions, if any, you would take in relation to each, and why.
Immediately, the first action I would take would be to reach out to the Head of Security and ask why they are deciding to coup the Captain. Is it because the Captain is hiding from the Clown? Is it because the HoS sees it as a mutiny from the Captain and QM? Why is the HoP in agreement with HoS on the situation. There are a lot of different perspectives, responsibilities, and mindsets here, and so it would be best to start with the player with the most power: The HoS. Certainly, hiding from the non-antag Clown who stole the Captain’s sabre is valid should the Clown be threatening their safety or running from their mistakes, but there seems to be a miscommunication or outright lack of communication amongst command. To coup a command member, the Captain especially, would require a vote from the entire command force to be legal, and if the QM or the other members of command did not partake, it would put HoS in the wrong right off the bat with the looming threat of a warning or potentially even a roleban depending on the circumstances.
That being said, the Clown should not have the Captain’s sabre unless it was given for a specific emergency situation and the Captain is not able to use it themselves. Given that it was pointed out that the Clown is a non-antagonist, it seems like it was stolen for the pure sake of stealing, which is unacceptable behavior. Should the Clown then harm another player with the stolen sabre, it could fall under self-antagging, and while I would give the Clown a warning for stealing the sabre to begin with, it could result in more severe punishments should they have had previous warnings for their behavior.
The Quartermaster is one of the least guilty members in this situation in my eyes. I do not see many issues with them harboring the Captain and offering safety from the Clown. If the Captain shares that HoS and HoP are trying to demote them, it’s understandable that the Captain would want to put distance between themselves and the station until things can get settled. Cargo is the Quartermaster’s responsibility, as is the shuttle, and using it for a purpose such as this is only appropriate.
Should the Quartermaster be in on it with the Captain, or a legitimate reason such as griefing or potentially self-antagging and therefore triggering the desire to coup the Captain comes into play, however, then I would give the QM a warning as this could not only go against Space Law but game rules as well.
Moving on to the Head of Personnel, there isn’t much information given so my actions would depend on how the in-game events play out. It seems like they could go one of two ways:
One, the HoP is following HoS’s lead blindly from only being given parts of the story by the HoS or for more nefarious reasons such as wanting to step up and become Captain themselves.
Two, the HoP is genuinely attempting to assist in what could turn out to be a dangerous situation not only for themselves but the crew as well.
Arming to aid in arresting the Captain makes sense - the Captain, while without their sabre, is still armed with their antique laser pistol. In a scenario where the HoS has a valid and legal reason to arrest the Captain, the HoP’s presence is not necessarily required and should be filled by a security officer or a role with equal responsibility. I would give them a warning if it turns out that the HoP is attempting to overthrow the captain. Should the Captain be in the right and HoS in the wrong, however, I would not take administrative action and let it play out through in-game roleplay.
Scenario 3
You are ahelping a player about an issue. The player has no prior noted issues. A few days earlier, an admin had told you that this type of situation should result in a temporary ban for a first offense, and you are confident that this situation is not substantially different from the type that admin was describing. During the ahelp, another admin pings you on Discord with a link to the ongoing ahelp and tells you to just indefinitely ban them and make them appeal. Excluding trialmins and headmins, all admins are equally “ranked”. A headmin is not currently available.
Given that I am confident that this situation is not substantially different from the type that the first admin was describing, even with the second admin’s input, I would consult the Banning Policy to ensure that the offense that was committed is, in fact, worthy of a temporary ban rather than an indefinite ban. Regardless of what the second admin says, I would use the policy to justify my decision to do so, especially since it is the player’s first offense. An indefinite ban is a heavy punishment, and if the player did something unworthy of such a severe punishment, it’s incredibly unfair to make them appeal said ban.
The attitude from the second admin saying to “just indefinitely ban them and make them appeal” comes off as very cold, as if the second admin did not take the time to read through and digest both sides of the situation or just doesn’t care, which feels very inappropriate for a game administrator. Even if all admins are equal in rank (excluding headmins and trialmins), it’s still important to consult the Banning Policy before making any final decisions.
I would then contact a headmin and inform them of what happened and my decision to dish out the punishment that I gave, as well as what the second admin told me, because if I was in the wrong I would want to be blatantly told so so that I can improve my judgement skills and decision making for the future.