I’ve mentioned this in another thread, but Salamander currently exists as an “MRP-” environment where players new to the game dip their toes in and get a feel for what the MRP experience can offer. New players start on Lizard, mix around with Leviathan and Vulture, then apply for Salamander. All three servers have very different playerbases and roleplay tendencies.
That being said, the whitelisting process is extremely accessible compared to other servers and does not vet applicants over their perception of whether they “play to win” or “play to roleplay”. As it stands, applying for MRP is simple as: check boxes on the required minimums (play time, admin notes, account age), gloss over the rules, and type a paragraph about a character’s backstory. This is not inherently a bad thing if we perceive Salamander as an intro to MRP.
What the issue seems to be is that the Salamander playerbase cannot figure out what it wants to be. Salamander could be a player interaction rich server, but most players do not put initiative into fostering roleplay over mechanical gameplay and “winning”. LOOC abuse is a signal as to what the average mander player sees the server as, quoting AdmiralObvious,
it appears that from both an admin perspective, and my perspective as someone who has been playing Salamander on a consistent basis for about 6 months, that creative roleplay is simply not a priority over greentexting or neutralizing all antags.
“MRP-focused content” will only take you so far if nobody cares or interacts with it. It would take a complete shift in perception for Salamander players for the server to become a rich MRP environment.
I might be in the minority here, but I like the environment that comes with mander. I have played ss14 for almost a year now, and I have only played on mander after getting white-listed. I like the lower pop environment and still having the ability to play antags “normally” As someone mentioned the people willing to play antag seems to be low due to how often I am get antag. My main issue with the server at the moment is how many people complain in both LLOC and OOC. It may be a coincidence but I feel like after the metashield got removed more people have been complaining about getting caught as an antag or someone making a small mistake.
Again I am probably in the minority, but I like how mander is set up, but the malding is getting a little excessive.
As someone who’s been playing on mander almost exclusively for a few months now, I think mander’s biggest issue is the playerbase’s focus on winning above everything. In my experience, antags (and crewmembers) often get dead set on a few specific goals, spend the entire round pursuing them, and then, when something doesn’t go their way, they take to OOC and start spouting a laundry list of grievances against the game, the players, and really anyone but themselves.
This is just a phenomenon I’ve observed, and I can’t really offer many good solutions for it. It would require a radical change in players mentality, which isn’t something that can be forced.
A band-aid fix could be the proposed removal of greentexting, which might encourage less of a “get the win over everything else” mindset. Some people have also suggested limiting or removing LOOC to prevent malding, but in my opinion this treats the symptoms, rather than the underlying causes.