If we stole that code, not only would we be pulling a dick move, but we'd lose the individuality we have at Bay 12.
Something Awful - "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"
Normally, I play nice, but SA seems to play by a different set of rules everytime I see them. I actually have an older copy of their build, as I hunted one down to try to learn how the mechanics of some of the stuff the wiki didn't mention.
Anyways, I've only dabbled on goonserver and don't know the differences between the two that well, but it seems that the only differences besides graphics that I noticed were:
-The map
-More complicated genetics stuff (most players could care less)
-More gamemodes to keep things interesting.
The gamemodes are easily replicated and probably the most important. You don't need to steal the code to add some of the gamemodes they have. Considering they aren't really that original I wouldn't worry about not doing it just because they have.
What makes b12 unique is that the players on it aren't either assholes (SA/Goon) or 12 years old (facepunch). On a different note I thought I could throw this out to any dev's. Hopefully, it will help with new players:Having never played on Byond or SS13 at all I started a few weeks ago. I'm going to try and provide a little synopsis of a veteran gamer trying to pick this game up. I played about twenty hours, while coding in the background (so don't say I wasn't patient, I had plenty of stuff to do instead of ADD trying to blow the ship).
-I started on a sandbox server after I had read every single article on the goonserver wiki. I screwed around testing the terrible hand swapping system.
-The hand swapping system would be 10x better for new players if on selecting an item it brought up a small text saying, "Empty Right Hand selected, to move item from backpack..."
-Even after twenty hours I still find the backpack and item swapping to be awful, and any lag only amplifies the confusion. Did I actually hit the right buttons and it's just lagging?
-After I get the hang of the interface I join a real server and spend a few hours time ghosting, then being an assistant so I can learn the station layout and gameplay better.
-I got to experience randomly being pulled into the lab and mutated...interesting I guess.
-I was getting antsy to actually do something, so I tried being a romanticist and ended up getting killed by a MULE or something before actually doing anything. More ghosting.
-After being a scientist for another mostly uneventful game I was the head of security. The player count was over 30 and it was at least interesting. I played it safe and rarely was ever isolated. I spent most of the beginning dispatching security officers, but I eventually realized that I was herding cats. Half of the security force was rogue and were accusing each other of all doing illegal things. I spent the rest of the game (half hour or so) just breaking up fights and watching officer handcuff officer. Even with the help of a logical veteran detective player I was left with being an internet babysitter with kids who just kept pointing fingers. None of them were traitors, just idiots.
-The next game I realized that being one of these department heads at least kept me busy so I filled out for a lot of head positions and ended up as captain. I never imagined it would feel so powerless. I spent the game in the bridge resetting the ships announcements that someone kept setting with porn links and stupid stuff. The AI went rogue and people were sent to kill him, but I really wasn't needed as all the department heads already knew what to do and no one ever broke into the bridge. I knew who the traitor was from the beginning and essentially gave him free reign twenty minutes in because nothing fun was happening.
So here's my thoughts on this as a whole:
-I cannot believe how much effort has to be devoted to understanding this game. I am pretty sure that the average player devotes far less effort and research to learning the game. It seems like more pregame learning than DF, but with less payoff. It's really too bad BYOND doesn't have a minimap, but even a few interface tweaks to the inventory would help.
-
The weird tick based movement is at odds with the game. If you want to not play like an idiot you need to actually type stuff out and know what's going on. However, any time you go to type or play it slow, greifers/traitors/whatever, are going to kill you or run away and cause problems. Sometimes even stopping someone from running straight past you into a guarded area is just way too hard. I really don't know what the solution to this is, but it was really evident when I was playing security officer. If I stopped to demand what they were doing I'd just get stunned immediately or they would run away. It encourages you to shoot first.
-There needs to be more goals for players. With a lot of the objectives 90% of the crew ends up just screwing around. They either have no vital function in the first place or their function is easily finished. Some of the roles actually seem like all they do is piss people off (geneticists like to grab people). All that's left to do is screw around.
It would be interesting if each player was given their own goal. These goals wouldn't necessarily be at odds with their primary function. Perhaps the doctor could have the goal that when the round ends that 90% of the players are alive, or that he resurrects at least X people.
Group goals would also be interesting. Let's say the roboticist, geneticist, and an engineer are all assigned the goal of making some super cyborg together, in addition to whatever the main goal of the mode is. If they have some extra time they can work together to try and build this, without them just rogue and playing their own game.
-Similarly, there seems to be too much trust that people won't do certain things just because that's not their role. I can't believe I'm actually suggesting some artificial restrictions in a game, but it seems necessary to stop non traitor griefers from ruining the game. As I mentioned with the tick-based movement system, it's hard to play your role when you have to worry about taking your hands aside to type and being killed right out in the open (and then waiting 30+min for the next round).
-I don't know if this is just a goonserver thing, but all officers start with the DNA/fingerprint of the traitor and can immediately find out their name. Knowing who the traitor was, but being unable to do anything about it for fairness sake kind of sucks. Watching them like a hawk is boring for them and you so I won't do that. There needs to be some alternative to this system.
Two AI's.
This law.
"4. Ai battle royale. S.M.D. must assure the humans do not escape. R.A.N.D.O. must ensure the humans escape. This law overrides all other laws."
Hah, that one seems pretty interesting to try.
Poll
67 (25.9%)
Author
Topic: Space Station 13 *READ RULES ON FIRST POST* (Read 808352 times)