In-game Username: Minemoder
Discord username: Minemoder
Characters you play: Valerie Melton
On average, how many hours do you expect to admin per week: 20
Days you are available to admin on: I am available every day of the week, though more available Wednesdays
How old are you? 22
Do you have any SS14 experience outside of Wizard’s Den servers, or any SS13 experience? I have no experience playing SS13, and at the time of writing I have only played a few hours on Frontier. I do plan on exploring other servers on the hub.
Do you have prior administration experience (SS13/SS14 experience preferred, please also post a way for us to verify this)? I unfortunately don’t have any admin experience with SS13 or 14, nor any practical admin experience on any other games or discord servers. The most I have is being trusted by friends to help admin their discord servers that are largely inactive.
Have you ever been banned from any SS14 or SS13 servers? I don’t have any bans on my account, nor do I have negative admin remarks.
What are you primarily interested in doing as an admin? I want to actively help rounds in progress stay going smoothly, ensuring no self-antags or raiders are able to massively negatively impact the round for anyone involved.
I want to help nudge players away from minor rulebreaks e.g.; zombies attacking machinery or inanimate objects instead of things with brains, players on MRP forgetting about NLR after dying, minor slips with metaknowledge.
On the discord server I want to help answer questions brought up in #admin-questions as the channel is consistently busy, and I have a lot of time available outside of active game adminning that I can use to answer questions.
As an actual admin, not just a trial admin, I look forward to being able to set up events or conduct mid round admemes to bring players a new experience from a standard round.
What are you least interested in doing as an admin? I’m aware that there will be people that I deservedly punish that will fight against me tooth and nail and I’m not looking forward to the inevitable unwinnable arguments.
I’m aware that looking through replays of previous rounds is a part of my responsibilites and will do it, though from my experience looking through replays for fun it does feel like it will be a slog to look for one specific moment from an ahelp.
Detail Questions
What role do you think game admins serve on our servers?
Admins on Wizard’s Den serve the purpose of maintaining overall stability. In active rounds, they ensure that a round’s roleplay goes smoothly, and intervene when needed. They help correct minor rulebreaks with ahelps or smites, while punishing major rulebreaks with appropriate bans. Specific to MRP admins may also look at specific events and scenarios that, while not breaking any rules, may not be a good fit for MRP and may warn or even de-whitelist the player.
Admins also carry out round specific events to create a completely unique round different from standard roleplay. If not a round specific event, an admin can intervene in an ongoing round that players may be considering to be too slow and add a special twist while not derailing roleplay completely for players.
Outside of active rounds, admins are tasked with looking back at previous missed ahelps and retroactively correcting the issue. They also respond to issues brought up on the forums or discord and answer or correct them appropriately.
To the servers as a whole admins are also responsible for creating and voting on the rules they enforce in the first place; and reacting to new mechanics and situations that are made possible by the maintainers and contributors.
Why do you want to become an administrator for SS14?
I’ve been a fan of multiplayer roleplaying games ever since I was young, and SS14 now has hooked into me like few other RP experiences have. I want to help ensure that SS14 players, new, returning, or old have good experiences in every round they play or at least assurance that actions will be taken when RP breaks down for whatever reason.
I also want to invest myself into the game’s community and help it grow and stay healthy, and not degenerate long term into anything unwanted. As a part of this and previously mentioned, that includes helping new players understand the rules or clarify situations brought up that have no clear correct answer.
How do you feel about the current roleplay status on the servers?
I usually only play on Salamander sometimes jumping on to Grasshopper, so my experience with LRP is limited. Salamander overall runs well, but it is sometimes called LRP+, with guarantee that no shitters or self-antags will be present in the round. That said, there are still golden moments on Salamander that would qualify as being HRP.
I feel that the mix between new players and whitelisted players on Grasshopper cultivates a very unique set of players that are both learning the game’s mechanics while also being given an MRPesque environment.
I got my first 20 hours, before being whitelisted, on Lizard and I was lucky enough to have not run into any major issues; I may be able to account this to largely staying in my department doing my job at that point. I am still aware that Lizard is frequently troubled by NRP or raiders, and that Leviathan and Vulture leave more to be desired within the LRP environment by other players.
Other than banning problematic players, what admin actions do you believe have the biggest positive impact?
The largest impact admins have had on me were two separate occasions that I was smitten for things that I should not have done. As such, I believe that admins using corrective actions and punishments on players breaking minor rules can help the player to grow and be more mindful of the server rules, ensuring a better roleplay environment for the player and those around them.
Aside from enforcing rules in general and helping players, admins running events helps to make the game more unique by creating events otherwise impossible by standard gameplay mechanics.
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?
As stated in my previous answer, I was smitten twice and given an explanation afterwards. I find this to be completely acceptable though it would have been my personal preference that I was ahelped and given a chance to correct my actions before being smited.
Have you ever had a good experience with the game or a game admin? If so, what was it?
I’ve enjoyed most of the admin events I’ve participated in, but aside from admemes I really like being able to ask an admin about a thing I want more information about, e.g. asking about the reflect chances on a syndieborg’s dual esword and them being able to pull up the information in game.
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”.
Given that I am being asked to do something funny, it is safe to assume that no pre-round vote was held for any kind of event. Since there was no vote for an event, I will not do anything that will significantly change the course of the round’s roleplay.
This limits me to minor things only that, while they may change roleplay, cannot change the outcome of the round. If I’m not up for doing any minor event, I could simply turn the observers into items and flush them down disposals and return to observing the station.
If I do feel like running a minor event I could create ghost roles such as making pets sentient in the same way Pun Pun is sentient, like making Ian a sentient ghost role but still enforcing the dog accent. I could also create a specific CC endorsed bounty for cargo to obtain for a reward, that would still not cause issues in the future for any traitors.
Alternatively, I could wait for the traitors to be selected and ask them via ahelp if they would be interested in participating in an event, and if the traitors say yes I could run a server vote to get consent for the event. At this point the event could be major and shift the outcome of the round entirely.
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.
For this scenario overall, I will assume I am a late joining admin who lacks prior context to the round.
For the coup I will assume two scenarios, both starting with ahelping the HoS and HoP for more information.
For the first scenario I will assume the result of the ahelps is that the HoS and HoP are bored, and effectively self antagging as command. If the coup has not yet started, I will simply tell them to cancel the coup. If the coup has started, it may then become best to resolve it using IC tools such as CC announcements demanding that the HoS stands down, and potentially sending in ERT to assist defending the Captain. The HoS and HoP would be given negative remarks and I would likely give them rolebans.
In this second scenario I will assume the result of the ahelps is that the Captain is being couped for some form of incompetence or breach of the law, and the Captain is refusing to step down. In this case, I will allow for security to forcibly arrest the Captain. Depending on the severity of the Captain’s incompetence or law break, they may end up with a negative remark and roleban.
With the Clown, I would likely see how it plays out and determine if the Clown is simply clowning around (and likely to be arrested by security regardless of the coup situation), or if they legitimately mean to harm the Captain. If the Clown intended to harm the Captain, I would ahelp them to stop, smite if need be, and leave a negative remark. If this is known problematic behavior, I would likely also apply a roleban as well.
I believe that the Quartermaster is an innocent bystander in both scenarios, likely unaware of any coup plans and taking refuge from a potentially hostile clown that they don’t know for sure is an antagonist or not. I would take no action against the Quartermaster.
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.
As I would be an admin myself, I would be equally ranked among the other two admins as well and I can choose to handle the situation myself. I would go ahead with the temporary ban as it is a first offense. The indefinite appeal ban would be too much punishment for a first offense, and would negatively impact that player’s experience with the community as a whole, and could potentially hurt the game’s outward look. I would bring this situation up with a headmin at a later point for them to look into.