In-game Username: HeinrickArch
Discord username: heinrickarchsider
Characters you play: Heinrick Archsider.
On average, how many hours do you expect to admin per week: roughly 20
Days you are available to admin on: All week. My schedule is fairly open unless it changes. I generally log on every day.
How old are you? 26
Do you have any SS14 experience outside of Wizard’s Den servers, or any SS13 experience?
I started playing SS13 back in 2014. Most of my time was spent on paradise, Yog station, Aurora Station and Colonial marines. I joined in with colonial marines staff early (mid 2014) and remained a staff member till roughly late 2016.
Around 2018 I took an extended break from SS13. I played on and off for a few years but I didn’t return till about 2021. I returned to Colonial marines only and played till roughly 2023 before taking another short break and then moving onto SS14.
In SS14 I tried out the marine server here but I felt like I enjoyed the modern vanilla experience of wiz-den servers more. I have not tried much in the way of other servers outside of frontier. (at-least no marketable time)
Do you have prior administration experience (SS13/SS14 experience preferred, please also post a way for us to verify this)? I was an early staff member in the Colonial Marines server of SS13. I started as a moderator in 2014, I was at one point a mix of map developer and moderator for awhile. I ended my service as an Admin in 2016. I did attempt a short return a few months after my retirement due to missing it but I was promptly reminded why I retired and left again late 2016.
Experience of administration outside of SS13 includes running my own dayz RP server for a short time and being a Shift Manager for KFC as well as a Shift manager for Big Box Outlet (a semi local retail store)
Due to the age of the information I am only able to gather the following evidence.
Screenshot by Lightshot Promotion to admin
Screenshot by Lightshot Post made in staff topic
[All Staff Respond] Slack Invites - CM-SS13 proof of proof
Reference numbers of my previous employers may be provided too if wanted…
Have you ever been banned from any SS14 or SS13 servers? I remember an old time-ban from bay station for arguing with an admin over improper escalation of force as HoS. it was a role ban but after arguing it became a timed server ban. circa 2014 before I had become a staff member on another server and learned why my arguing was unproductive for the situation.
To be completely honest, I still disagree with the role-ban but I understand why it was promoted to a server ban after arguing with the issuing staff member (it was in the rules to not argue with them). I do believe I never appealed and it expired.
What are you primarily interested in doing as an admin? I’m mostly interested in assisting to help grow the community, keeping it clean, respectful and assisting uncertain players learn how to play the game and make informed decisions. Overall im interested in having fun, helping people, and making sure everyone else has fun too, it is a video game after all.
In my previous experience of administration on ss13 I also quite enjoyed log diving for appeals and player reports to learn the truth and ensure administrative decisions where handed out justly. I was told in my handling of ban appeals and rule enforcement that I tended to be lenient but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, at the end of the day I rather not take drastic actions for incidents of minor consequence. everyone should have fun!
Also I cannot refute that I will no doubt utilize my powers for the purpose of events… at-least in a manner that is not overkill or detrimental to server operation.
What are you least interested in doing as an admin? Banning people. I understand many rule violations happen as either accidents or incorrect interpretation of rules. I do not punish people who make mistakes and I always attempt to allow someone to understand and self-correct offending behaviour they may exhibit. However, with that said, I also understand the prevalence of bad actors who do seek to cause issues. If someone is being a real jerk or purposefully ruining the game for others I have no issue taking action.
Detail Questions
What role do you think game admins serve on our servers?
Game Admins serve as the front-line role of the operations team for the servers. Handling In-game issues such as rule violations, player complaints and round operation, including fixing applicable glitches or bugs that interrupt the flow of round progression. Of course this is not to say that Game-admins are developers capable of committing code (unless one is a contributor by choice, yet unrelated to server administration) but at the same time, admins generally have access to tools that can be used to moderate the flow of game-play such as:
Debuging tools
Spawning Items
Deleting Items
Reviving characters
Restarting the round
Atmospheric controls
Removing unruly or otherwise unreasonable rule violators from the round.
Admins also have the duty of assisting players in understanding the rules and ensuring everyone can enjoy themselves reasonably.
Admin duties are not limited to In-game either. Generally admins also serve as community moderators, moderating and responding to questions on discord or the forums, assisting players with administrative tasks such as ban appeals, complaints, rule clarification and general information.
Overall I would say the total role of a game admin on Wiz-den servers is to keep things smooth and help everyone have a good time, and of course, moderate rule violations and bad actors.
Why do you want to become an administrator for SS14?
I enjoy helping people and I really like assisting other people in having their own fun! you could say its one of those catch-22s, I have fun when other people have fun, so doing things directly to help people have fun makes me even happier!
I’ve always found myself to be a helpful, self respecting individual, dedicated to keeping things chill and relaxed. I want to help the current staff keep up the good work and earn the right to do a bit of good work myself again, I still miss it from the old days.
How do you feel about the current roleplay status on the servers?
It’s massively contingent on which server you join in particular. As an overall whole I am quite happy with the multiple avenues of role-play offered by the server selection of Wiz-Den. Generally I have played most of my time on the lower role-play based server of lizard however I have begun to play salamander more since being whitelisted on it and I find the more moderate level of salamander is quite enjoyable.
As a general rule of thumb the definition of role-play changes slightly for every player you encounter and as such its very hard to nail down a particular style or standard. I have found many community members who do their best to role-play all the time as well as those who only take it extremely lightly. I fluidly enjoy playing with people from both sides of the spectrum and I find moments of fun and excitement with any play style.
Other than banning problematic players, what admin actions do you believe have the biggest positive impact?
Helping players learn game mechanics by answering questions and putting myself into positive in-game positions that can be easily interacted with. As I mentioned above I love helping people and always jump at the opportunity to doso so incidentally I also find that to be one of the major positive impacts available as a game admin.
Rather then just outright banning violators I also believe admins can produce a major positive impact by teaching players about the rules, and clarifying things with those who do end up preforming minor rule violations. Many people don’t break the rules in ways that are meant to be nefarious or otherwise overly negative to the server and community as a whole, many are found to be accidental or stemming from confusion on exact clarification for particular rules. I also find some players incidentally break rules due to a lack of IC actions being taken over incidents and while this is no excuse to break rules, in many cases the players believe themselves to be taking the only reasonable option available. At the end of the day most of the players here want to be here and they are more then happy to learn from their mistakes and be better in the future.
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 had a few negative experiences on the Wiz-Den servers but nothing overly major, Most of those experiences simply stem of competing or otherwise incompatible play styles. These experiences are less negative and more unpleasant.
The few major negetive experiences I have had stem from players who cannot seperate the video-game from real life and have proceed to use both IC and LOOC to engade in verbal insults of other players for doing their roles. Mostly in the sense of players insulting security staff simply for existing or overreacting to IC policing of space law.
One previous incident I saw had a player assault a security officer several times and breach arrest after being found with major contra, his in game response after being cuffed was to yell about shit-sec and begin insulting the mental capacity of the arresting officer. Upon suggestion of perma for his actions he began using LOOC to insult the officers mother and birth as a whole before disconnecting. The other officer felt that he should report the incident via forms or Ahelp and I agreed but he quickly changed his mind feeling it was too petty for him to continue pursuing and it would have simply caused more stress. While I understand his desire to not be stressed out further I still believe it should have been pursued due to the obvious intent of the other player to cause real mental harm to the officer over in-game actions and the possibility of it happening again if unchecked. No one deserve to be spoken to like that, least of all over a video game.
Have you ever had a good experience with the game or a game admin? If so, what was it?
Most of my time here has been a positive and awesome experience! In particular the occasionally wonky but effective central command announcements are quite enjoyable.
One admin Xx_swagmaster_xX has a habit of running hilarious yet completely useless votes, and in one particular experience he was attempting to run a round of Barratry before realizing it would not work, then figuring it would work, before finally giving up and putting on a completely normal round to the screams of hate from the server he excited over an event versing the calls of joy from those who couldn’t handle another Barratry round hahah.
Recently as well, while playing as captain, we where quickly attacked by nukies very early in the round. Due to the risk of losing power and losing the evac console it was suggested to me we call evac and I agreed, however central command (Unknown admin) decided we where leaving too quickly and recalled the shuttle, thou unexpected this resulted in the crew pulling through on a major victory that otherwise would have been lost. They also rewarded us with a pizza party back at CC!!!
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”.
I’m assuming I have already chosen not to be running any kind of major event and since it’s still the start of the round and traitors have not been selected I would rather not do anything too funny such as inserting more traitors or otherwise doing anything that would majorly affect the overall progression of the round. I also assume the two players encouraging me to “Do something funny” have observed instead of playing and begun encouraging admin action particularly to be involved in said funniness. While I would never punish someone for such a thing I also would not like to encourage that behaviour either. Since I do quite enjoy to have fun thou and, to take every opportunity to cause more fun, I would entertain the idea of waiting awhile (approximately 15-20 minutes) beyond round start to engage in a “Random” game-play event, allowing the two players, plus the third unasking player if they so desire, to participate. In particular for this event I think it would sound fun if ;
A random low ranking extremely profit minded inspector from central command along with their assistant(s) to show up to the station to preform a semi-random inspection. The Representative and assistant(s) would be the three players in question. They would overall have no real authority outside of further contacting their own superiors and would be there solely to take notes and report on the status of the station its departments, and crew to help corporate maximize profits. They would be granted no round changing equipment or special items and they would also be encouraged to give some possibly downright silly and funny recommendations to the captain, such as ceasing the consumption of alcohol from the bar to improve efficiency, or reducing crew breaks due to a lack of productivity, maybe even prioritizing the construction of clown outfits to meet some random quota. The inspection would last roughly ten minutes and the central command team would be expected to return. HOWEVER this allows for further gameplay modifications, such as in the event traitors incidentally operate directly in front of the CC team or if the CC team is caught in the crossfire of a traitor attempting to kill another crew member. Resulting in the CC team requesting reinforcements in the form of a ERT to ensure their safe extraction from the station, and while again I would rather not allow the event to modify any core part of the round progression, if traitors choose to continue attacking the CC reps or the ERT itself their actions could result in the ERT assisting the crew in arresting/combating the traitors, even if only temporarily.
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.
The first part of this scenario would be discovering the reason behind the HoS’s coup, the captains abandonment of the station, and the clowns total actions. While there could be many viable reasons for these subjects, there could also be a rule violation (or several) without the proper reasoning. In this scenario I will be assuming the HoS is only couping due to the belief that the captain has abandoned the station, which is true, he definitely has, and that the HoS has talked to the HoP discussing what happened and both parties have reasonably demanded that the captain return to the station with the captain refusing and that the HoP has gained permission from the head of security to arm themselves in a reasonable assumption that the captain is abandoning his duty and may require the next highest ranking officer on the station to assist in the arrest, I am assuming the HoP is not intending on purposefully engaging in combat with the captain and that “Arms” is defined as non-lethals such as a disabler, stun baton and anti laser riot shield (due to the present of caps laser and lack of sword) I also will be assuming that the captain believes themselves to be operating within the confines of his duty and has not entered the cargo shuttle and left the station to abandon his role, on the contrary he is seeking to protect himself and the nuclear disk from possible threats, so its important to recognize that. The clown has stolen the captains sword, and I assume has refused to give it back when asked, rather he attempted to attack the captain with it, resulting in the captain fleeing to the nearest safe area, that being the cargo shuttle and having the QM lunch it, who was incidentally caught in the middle of this “Crossfire” by being on the shuttle after returning from the ATS, this part defines an obvious rule break for the clown;
A) [Don’t act like an antagonist unless the game tells you that you are one]
The next part of this scenario involves inserting myself as an administrator into the situation and preventing it from getting out of hand. Mainly entailing an attempt to stop the HOS/HOP coup as, in this example of my assumptions, it’s quite overkill for a sudden coup against the captain for simple cowardice and the action of returning the captain to the station as a part of his duty before he does abandon it. I would use CC announcements to communicate with both parties (The HoP/HoS - Cap/QM) as, based on earlier assumptions, neither party has necessarily broken a rule yet and are both acting within the confines of their own reasonable belief of duty, and attempt to both deescalate the overkill coup from the HoS/HoP and inform the captain of his duty to return to the station. Following these quick actions I would focus on the clowns self antaging, questioning why, in this case I am assuming he had no valid reason and simply found it to be funny and issue a fair and appropriate judgment to the best of my ability. I will also assume the player with the clown understands how his actions have violated the rules and they are apologetic for their actions.
My order of action in this scenario would be thus;
Identify the situation, quickly learn of the major variables involved with it, such as the clown not being an antag, the captain having been attacked before fleeing and the HoS/HoP attempt to call the captain back before attempting to coup. I would begin central command communications to the HoS/HoP, informing them to immediately deescalate the situation and that central command does not approve of the coup action, while simultaneously communicating with the captain and QM as well, informing them of their duty to return to the station immediately and preform their duties. I would begin an Ahelp with the player of the clown to understand why they did what they did and, based on the assumption they are not trying to ruin the round or further attack the captain beyond one hit, I would issue them a warning with a temporary note, the warning would include informing them of the violated rule, exactly what they did to violate it (Stealing a lethal weapon and attacking the captain) and why its not the best choice to do that as a clown. I would also inform him that as a non-antag clown he can never attack another staff member with a deadly weapon as a “joke”. However with the assumption they are remorseful for doing it I would not issue any form of ban or permanent note. After the rule violation is dealt with I am assuming that captain/QM have returned to the station and that the HoS/HoP have deescalated as requested, with the HoP disarming. I would promptly ahelp the captain, informing him that its a fairy poor decision as the captain to leave the station for such a minor reason as a single person chasing him when he has a full security department, and his own other options for lethal/nonlethal self-defence and that in the future he should attempt to find another method to secure himself. I would also ahelp both the HoS/HoP and communicate how a coup against the captain was a little unjustified, the biggest issue being that the captain was not, and had no intention of abandoning his duties, and thou unreasonable for him to not return sooner when requested, was not particularly worthy of a mutiny either and that in my findings it was an unreasonable escalation of force since the captain did not intend to stay off the station for any reason other then personnel protection. While cowardly, I do not see it as a rule violation of the [Do not abandon your role] rule. The captain was theoretically still acting in charge of the station over radio and again, had no intention of ceasing command activity or not returning. I would not ahelp the QM as he did absolutely nothing wrong. I don’t think the roleplay level of the server would particularly affect this scenario with the assumptions I have made.
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.
For this scenario I will make up two different but slimier incidents with three possible outcomes.
Based on the scenario provided I am assuming that I have not personally handled this issue before and have no experience on the matter. Really this situation would heavily depend on the severity of what is happening. Since one fellow admin has suggested this thing normally gets outright temp-banned by most staff, and another has suggested it should be an indefinite ban to be appealed I am assuming its a fairly major, yet also somewhat common rule violation such as a case of the [Do not use out of game methods to communicate with other players] Zero tolerance rule. Even thou in this case, the player has no prior issues noted, the rule is a zero tolerance one and no matter your reason it is impossible to verify if the player in question was doing it as abuse or otherwise as an accident/misinterpretation of the rules. In this scenario I am assuming that the earlier admin who suggested a temp ban did so because of the inability to confirm innocence and as such simply suggests a basic blanket punishment, as not reading or understanding the rules is not a valid excuse to break them. I assume the admin suggesting the indefinite ban not only has slimier feelings but they have evidence of the current metacomming actually happening and has only suggested the harsher action to help ensure the player in question is able to prove to us that he has read and fully understands the rules before returning to reduce future incidents based upon the fact he is obviously violating a rule with proof. In this scenario I find both suggestions to be fairly harsh but not entirely unreasonable. Thus my actions would be;
I would question the player on if he has fully read and understood our rules, based on the following assumption that he has, I would question in particular why he was using OOC methods to communicate, I further assume the player in question accepts the evidence and argue, yet claims he was trying to teach his friend the game. I’m assuming that the metacomming is happening in a discord server and the evidence is a picture of the current chat happening but it’s not possible to verify the defence. Regardless of any reason, the rule is zero tolerance and the player has affirmed to me he understood the rules yet has clearly broken one by not understanding them. As much as love advice from more experienced staff members, in this exact case I would follow neither admins advice and would instead issue a stern warning to the player with a permanent note attached to their account. while I will not ban them I will ensure they fully read and understand the rule in particular they broke and can explain it to me in their own words, this of course is assuming the player is cooperative, repentant and not antagonistic towards me. I would ensure the note against the player conveys fully that the next violation should result in an indefinite ban to be appealed since they have been sternly warned to get a better grasp of the rules. Another major assumption here is that a the Meta-communication Zero Tolerance rule does not always have to result in a ban, and that a permanent note and stern warning is sufficient punishment/action for it at the discretion of the responding administrator.
Now, to look at this from an entirely different point of view. In this situation, the rule being violated by the player is the [No Hate Speech or Discriminatory Language] rule. The reasons for the admin suggestions are slimier in this situation. I am assuming the previous admin who was suggesting a temp ban did so because this kinda rule violation is particularly heinousness and generally directed as personnel attacks against people or races. I am assuming that the admin who pinged me on discord suggesting an indefinite ban has done-so because they are witnessing the ahelp underway and are suggesting from their experience that the best course of action is to remove the player and let them calm down before appealing and explain to the administration team their understanding of the rule, why it exists and to apologize for their actions. I am also assuming the player in question directly attacked a fellow player in LOOC and obviously had intention of insulting other player and is unremorseful over their actions, refusing to accept they have done any wrong. (s). This rule is also zero tolerance and must result in action being taken, again I do believe the exact composition of that action is up to the responding admin unless a head-admin states otherwise, be that a ban or warning. In this case however I would take the advice of the admin who suggested the indefinite ban to be appealed. With the player obviously targeting someone with hate speech in LOOC and their lack of remorse it strikes me that they know what they are doing is wrong and simply don’t care. Thus I would;
Open the ahelp with the offending player, informing them that their actions are unacceptable and constitute a violation of our No Hate Speech or Discriminatory Language rule. Based on the assumption they are unremorseful and uncaring a prompt indefinite ban that can be appealed will be issued and the incident noted into their notes stating what happened and that a further rule violation with a slimier rule should result in the pressing of another indefinite ban. Once the player understands our rules and is understanding as to why what they did was wrong and wants to seek forgiveness they can appeal.
The counterside to this little bit would include if the player was remorseful over their actions and quickly understood why what they did was wrong;
I would still ahelp the player in a slimier manner, informing them of the particular rule violation and it’s status as a zero tolerance rule, based on this assumption that the player is remorseful for their actions and wishes to apologize I would issue a temporary ban to let the player cool their head a little bit and think on what they did further, maybe touch up on the rules too, I would also communicate their remorse to the party they insulted. While they can appeal this ban I would only issue it for roughly a day as the player in question is already regretful and I see further punishment as preventive action to be useless due to remorse and in my opinion could even result in creating a possible tit for tat scenario where the offending player returns only to offend again on purpose over anger, while this is no excuse for this kind of activity I can see how it may play out as such. This is not to say that appropriate punishment should not be handed out due to risk of reprisal, just that actions of reprisal may result from inappropriate punishment. With that in mind I would also place a strong permanent note on the players account, noting what happened and that another rule violation of slimier standard should result in an indefinite ban.