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[Aavak]

I recently stumbled across this sci-fi themed game at the recommendation of a friend. We're both avid role players and have staffed on a number of RP enforced MUDs (and I own one) so it tends to take a lot to perk our interests in games outside of the ones we've already tailored to suite our personal tastes, but this MUD has definitely got my attention.

Before I get into a lengthy attempt to highlight the nature of the game and what you can expect, here's the link:

AtonementRPI

Now, first of all, let me make the most obvious comparison, and the one that I had to butt in on his initial description of this game to make, because it was just too funny:

“Whoa, whoa... Hang on. Sorry to interrupt you Chris, but James, am I the only one who's having flashbacks of stepping off an arrival shuttle to find half the station's been blown to smithereens and there's some madman running around with a bloody toolbox??”

We laughed. Apparently I wasn't the only one to make a connection to Space-Station 13 as we were being told of waking up from a cryotube to a message from the ship's AI informing us of an emergency protocol, being assigned with clearance to certain areas based on our profession, presumably; due to the emergency situation and the sudden way we've been woken from cryosleep, no one knows who they are or has any memories beyond a few glimpses into their past relating to some deeply familiar skills they have.

The message “The ship's gone to hell, it's falling apart, there's blood all over, and food is about the most precious commodity in existence” is hammered home using Mjǫllnir within about 10 minutes, or 4 rooms worth of travel from the starting area. Or the first person you meet who will almost certainly look starved and once they realise you've just woken up and thus will have been handed a cache of supplies by the AI, will likely beg you for some rations. (( DO NOT GIVE THEM AWAY. DO NOT ADVERTISE THAT YOU HAVE THEM... at least, if that fits in with your character's personality anyway. ))

Your character knows nothing about themselves, not even their name, just that the ship is heading 'home' (wherever that is) and you quickly learn that some pretty nasty shit has been happening since the AI started waking people up. Naming is pretty amusing, in a sort of sad “Have we been reduced to this?” kind of way... some people have adopted the number that was on their cryotube (this is just RPed, they just make up a number and run with it) I've met 13 and 43 so far, 13 has a habit (and is thus known for it) for naming people she meets and her names kinda stick... so as one person advised my character early on “If you don't have a name, make one up. Or someone else will, and then you'll be stuck with it.” Some of the other names floating around are Raven, Ugly, Meat, Moth, Club, Broccoli (lol), and Biscuit (also lol).

Setting up a character takes a bit of time as they require staff validation before you can enter the game, mine took a 8 hours, but another friend is on day 3 though that's because his initial draft was declined because of too many spelling errors in the descriptions. Still, be ready for a wait as the official statement is 48 to 72 hours for validation (but other than the friend I just mentioned, most seem to be done within the same day that I can tell). When setting up the character for the first time you have a fairly limited set of options, you can only be a survivor (human) and you can select from a setup for a Soldier, Engineer, or Scientist. This deals with initial stats and skills though you get asked a bunch of “you see x, y, z: what do you do? A, b or c?” type questions and can later customize skills yourself before submitting the application so it seems that this is more a template to help you work out what would work well with the role you select. Once you're in game the AI will ask you (semi-oocly) what profession you had, this doesn't override what you picked in chargen, but rather sets you up with ship access for the retina scanners and such.

The Staff seem pretty active, and award RPP for good role-play and event participation, though it doesn't jump out at you really. It sorta flies under the radar as it doesn't have any effect on your actual character. Rather, should/when that character dies your RPP will apparently open up new opportunities and benefits in the next character you make. In this way the effect of death is offset a bit. It's permanent by the way, no respawning and it can be brutaly fast. My character met some people for the first time in a recent RP, they were in good health and high spirits. 20 minutes later and a tsunami of shit over the intercoms as the soldiers tried to liberate more of deck 2 (read also, Hell on Ship) so they could bring more rations down - everyone's starving on deck 1 – and the one I got on with best was dead. Along with 2 others. Just like that, pretty much. The game is pretty brutal and doesn't pull its punches and so tension is high among the crew. Apparently there is thievery and possibly murder going on (over rations, which are simultaneously what keeps you alive, and the only currency of any worth) among the survivors too, but I've not seen it, though I have seen shady types I wouldn't hang around alone in a dim corridor.

The post is already stupidly long and I don't even know if there'll be anyone interested in this sort of game (though I suspect there'll be a few, if they can get past the wait for character approval) so I'll tie it off here and we can chat more if people are interested. But seriously, this game is incredibly fun to play when you can log on during the higher player times. There don't seem to be many on at some times of the day, I've not worked out the highs and lows myself yet or I'd offer advice, but the boot-time high is 35, and I've rarely been on when there weren't at least 5 others running around and the small number of accessible areas (seriously, the non-sealed off parts of Deck 1 total maybe 20 or 30 rooms, tops) means even such small player numbers tend to be concentrated in a few key areas so RP is not hard to come by. I imagine if a bunch of us start playing regularly the awesome would only go up. Sharply.

[Pillow_Killer]

Nice, I'll check it out.

[rickvoid]

I need to look into this. HellMOO got boring real quick, this could totally be fun. My online problem would be not having much time to get on, but it sounds like they want quality over quantity anyway.

How do they explain logging off in-game, out of curiosity?

[Aavak]

There are certain rooms which can be used to log off in, more or less instantly, such as the male/female dorms. You walk into one of the rooms with a bunk in it and quit. Outside of those locations there's some legacy code from the codebase that Atonement is built on top of (It's a DIKU base, updated for Harshlands, and further updated for Shadows of Isildur) which means if you want to log off in any other room you can 'camp' (which goes though a logoff delay and echoes you setting up some sort of camp where you can sleep. I've not used that command myself so that's just what I got from the helpfiles.

In regards to the IC explanation for why people suddenly vanish and the whole 'what was my character doing while I was gone?' question, I don't think they've specifically addressed it to be honest. I don't recall seeing anything written about it, by and large I imagine most players assume their character is asleep, or just pottering around in the background, and the question of why no one can find them to interact with them is just never asked.

For my part, as I always make a point of quitting in the dorms, I assume my character went to sleep, and if I'm gone a while then I assume he woke up at some point but mostly kept himself to himself (not hard to imagine, the place is kinda scary and I could easily see him laying in the bunk, one eye open watching for threats, but otherwise just trying to not think about being hungry) but returned to the bunk at some point. Then when I log on, I assume he just woke up.


Hope that helps.

[Synzig]

This is not a good game.  In the slightest.  The staff is terrible.

Your playing experience is going to get ruined by elitist roleplayers and staff characters whom are awesomely powerful.  There are -way- better RPIs out there.  Namely Shadows of Islidur.

[Keita]

It appears that they either don't want any more players or that their application link is broken.

Or that I'm being thick. How do you apply for a character?

[Aavak]

To apply you need to log into the game and create an account, you'll get an e-mail with your account password (note that the name you use for your account will have to be different from the one you want to use for your characters). Once you log into the account, you can create a character and once you've finished the character creation process it is sent to the Staff to be validated.

[fenrif]

This sounds awesome, gonna check it out later tonight.

[beorn080]

What sort of skill system does it have? Clearly with true perma death there can't be that horrible of a grind.

[Aavak]

Well as it's running off the same modified code that powers Harshlands and SoI, it's kind of hard to tell. The focus is on RP so there aren't detailed readouts for things like skills, you don't see numbers. Instead you see a description of how competent you are with the skill.

I can't remember for sure if there are 4 or just 3 descriptions that cover a wide range of actual skill numbers that lie beneath, completely invisible to the player beyond the fact certain things get easier to do. It can take a good while to move from one description to the next, but then the move can sometimes represent a massive overall change in skills in examples where you started at the lower end of the previous descriptions bracket.

So, commenting only on what I know, skills improve through use. There is a VR machine about to allow people to improve their skill in combat without actually having to go and fight, or maim your sparring buddy in an environment with limited medical supplies. Other players are able to actively teach you the skills they know, which I understand is much more efficient than just improving through use. When you're setting up a character the game will suggest 4 skills based on the questions you answer and the role (soldier, engineer, scientist) you choose, however you can select an additional 4 for a total of 8, even dropping the ones it suggests for others you think would be better fitting for your character's background. It explains that while you can choose up to 8, the more you start with the lower all of your skills will be set initially, and I get the impression it's better to have a few focused skills to start with.

Sorry I can't answer you as completely as I would like, but if I should find out (and I'll try to nose around in the help-files when I log on in a little) I'll update

[quinnr]

I'll probably try it 

SS13 is fun.

[Aavak]

One thing to be aware of is that while you can be in the thick of action on SS13 from the second you log on, it may take a few hours for you to get into the swing of your character on Atonement. My first session was largely spent learning how to do what and wandering around deck 1 getting an idea for where things were. I then bumped into some guy who helped me out a bit, made me a makeshift weapon to keep myself safe, etc.

The second time I logged on, I pretty much got swept up into the action right away, but I'd logged on closer to their peak times I think as there were more people on and action was thick and fast though I got the feeling people were trying to avoid overwhelming me, new players have a tag appended to their IC description that lets people know they're new to the game. I imagine people take pains to avoid making their first experience a bad one, or frighten them off with expecting them to be able to do x, y, and z when in actual fact they've only just gotten to grips with movement

So depending on what you want from your first few sessions, you may want to try and aim for a time when there are less people around so you can explore quietly--around midday GMT works for that from what I can tell, there are a few people on at that time but you have to actively go looking for RP unless you're just lucky/unlucky and it bumps into you. But around midnight GMT to early morning it tends to be a lot more active and RP will actively come find you and suck you in, in my experience (One of the advantages of a small world, not so many places players can be, so it's easy to run into them)

[rickvoid]

I may start the let me have a character dance tonight. I live in the CST region, so no idea what the in-game population will look like then. Plus it may be a while before I get in anyway.

I'll post my in-game name here when it happens, and I encourage othe bay12ers to do the same.

[Future]

Hmm i was gonna try it out because you made it sound good but my application got refused because i cant put confidant in my description and i was also asked to make my description better or longer one of those, that seems like way too much effort for a game that may or may not be good. Im also lazy at descriptions so i cba.

[Giant Snowman]

The first time I logged on to SS13 I spent most of the time figuring out how to switch hands, turn my oxygen mask on and open doors.

What kind of environment mechanics does the space station have? Is there any way for players to screw with the air, water or gravity? Where does the food come from besides new players? Can the ai control station systems?