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I like point 4 ( Make the round continue after the wizard died (potentially reroll the gamemode/add other antags)) the most. My biggest problem with wizzard is the attitude/behaviour of the crew. As soon as the Wizz is confirmed (which happens almost immediately after roundstart 90% of the time), it feels like the crew is split in two groups. One half stops doing whatever they're supposed to do and start hunting the wizz like madmen (like they do when its blob time). The other half doesnt care to do anything because there is no reason to do so. When the wizzard dies, the round is over and most of the time it happens really quickly. Why bothering doing anything this round. All other points, except removing wizz, cause thats just not good (also we lost enough antags in the past), are way to arguable for me.

Wizard as a game mode is a very controversial topic, but most people agree that it's not fun to have rounds that usually end after 20 minutes because the wizard dies, but not much has been done to solve the problem. After the removal of the round start blob, I decided to make an unofficial poll to get the server's (and maybe the staffs') opinion on the wizard. This poll is unofficial and the result is only an indication of what the server wants, not what will happen to the game mode! I have come up with 6 options which I will briefly explain below. Feel free to add your own options and/or thoughts in the comment section! 1. Make it a major midround Wizards are usually less of a threat than xenos/blobs/terror spiders/..., simply because most wizards die after causing minimal to moderate destruction. Making them a major mid-round would be a (hopefully) refreshing alternative to the other mid-rounds and it would remove the short wizard rounds from rotation. Considering that some players are able to wreak a decent amount of havoc while playing wizard, it would be comparable to the other mid-rounds. However, some changes could be made to the spawn chance and to the spells (removing too strong spells, adding weaker ones) to ensure that it is not too much of a threat for a major mid-round. 2. Turn it into raging mages Raging mages would make each wizard round last much longer than it does now. It would also cause much more chaos, comparable to an average Nukie round. However, this could easily be too chaotic or stressful for players and make the game mode less fun for the player base. 3. Increase the chance to roll the gamemode Many people argue that the reason most wizards die so early is because they simply don't have the experience, as most people only play wizards after hundreds of hours of normal playtime. By (temporarily) increasing the chance of the game mode, the player base could learn how to play a wizard. After the average player's skill has increased, this could be reversed. 4. Make the round continue after the wizard died (potentially reroll the gamemode/add other antags) By continuing the round after the wizard died, you don't have to start the round over and potentially lose any progress you have made on personal projects. Adding a chance to spawn more antags also keeps departments like medbay or security from getting bored, as it doesn't become a guaranteed extended round. The problem with this is that sometimes wizards cause too much chaos for the round to simply continue. In these cases, however, the captain could be allowed to call the shuttle. 5. Remove it. In case somebody really dislikes the gamemode. 6. Leave it as it is There’s nothing wrong with the gamemode. 7. Simply buff it Adding more powerful spells or more spell points would make the wizard more powerful. This would create the problem that not only experienced players could become unstoppable, but also that it might not change much. (Don't take this as a criticism of our coding team. I just want to point out that this will probably be the case, since at least as far as I know they have tried to do it this way so far. The problem here (in my opinion) is that we depend on volunteers, who of course cannot be forced to do ten different PRs to add more spells. The other options would actually only require one PR (like increasing the gamemode's spawn chance)) 8. Other (Comment) Comment your own ideas or like the suggestion of other players!

While I like option four the most, it does have some issues. Wizard can permakill nerds easily, with stuff like ei'nath (Yes, you can transplant their brain. No, nobody likes being bald human named monkey(726)), cluwne transformation or wand of polymorph. While yes, captain can call the shutttle if situation gets too bad, what if it's bearable? Someone's afternoon, during which they wanted to play spess, just got denied. Another thing that came to my mind - other transformation spells. Mime one and clown one. They are just annoying after wizard dies. While I believe they could be fun to RP, I am also sure at least some players would reach for russian revolver. This one could MAYBE be fixed, if deemed bad enough, with possibly reverting the curse upon wizard's death? I still LIKE that option however - it adds concequences to wizard rounds and creates some work for crew, who could focus on fixing the wizard's masterpiece.

Name: Xenith iteration 4200. Preferred Nickname: Xen Age: 30 Gender: Genderless Race: Grey Blood Type: AB+ General Occupational Role(s): Xen has been tested and cleared for employment in all departments except Engineering Biography: Xen was born February 5th 2537, on Mauna-B the sole clone of a well esteemed member of the Technocracy, Xenith 4199 who served as head of xenobiology and foreign ambassador. At this point in time NanoTrasen and the Technocracy had been in cooperation for nearly 2 decades and as such the previously encapsulated society of Grey was becoming more familiar and comfortable with the culture and capitalism of the broader Sol Gov. As the child of an ambassador Xen had the fortune of travelling alongside their father visiting various planets and stations throughout both SolGov and USSP space going so far as to attend the NT sponsored "Excellence through diversity!" program, a foreign exchange education program allowing young teens from all reaches of the universe to attend the last 4 years of their education at an NT college on Earth. By the time Xen returned to Mauna-B in their late teens it was apparent that like many of their peers they had no desire to remain planet side spending their life researching every little wiggle of bluespace and instead took the first opportunity to enlist with the Technocratic Fleet as a Mecha repair technician and pilot. Little of Xen's service records remain unredacted as far as NT can uncover through interviews Xen was involved in clean up operations, usually deploying to stations and outposts where the synthetic workforce had gone rouge. What records do exist state plainly that Xen had difficulties with their superiors, often disagreeing over uses of force and was reprimanded for insubordination several times before being dishonorably discharged after 4 years of service. Instead of returning home however Xen found themselves on Ahdomai following an invitation from Local Tajaran troublemaker Brak H'raza who Xen had befriended at school on earth. Through Brak's connections Xen was able to set up a lab in the attic of Brak's cousins bar in the Ahdomai capital making money hand over fist selling custom implants and improvised bluespace tech to the locals, earning the trust and friendship of a local street gang in the process. Unfortunately for Xen eventually a piece of tech purchased from their lab was discovered at the scene of a botched heist and traced back to them leading to an even more botched raid on Xen's lab in which a shootout (escalated by NT officers) occurred between several Tajaran bar patrons and NT security forces. When the smoke had settled Brak and Xen were arrested and charged with several counts of distributing unlicensed bluespace technology, distribution of narcotics, posession of illegal firearms, discharge of firearms, operating a bluespace jiggler without a license, public endangerment, and loitering. After a few days in prison Technocracy officials arrived to expedite Xen and 2 weeks later Xen first arrived at NT Employee Orientaion with a fully binding employment contract and a look of extreme displeasure in their face and has since worked on station about 2 years. Qualifications: Master Biomechanist Master Mech Pilot/Repair Tech Master Surgeon Qualified in Law and Forensics Certified Scientist Employment Records: Technocratic Expeditionary Fleet as Mech Technician and Pilot. 2557-2561 Self employed tech dealer 2561-2565 NSS CYBERIAD 2565-Present Security Records: Arrested for several illegal laboratory operations and weapons charges in the NT capital on Ahdomai. Expedited to Mauna-B before contracted to NSS Cyberiad Medical Records: DO NOT CONTACT WITH WATER. Requires Speech Implant [clean S.E if surgery unavailable] Personnel Photo (Appearance text): Xen stands about 5'2 slightly taller than most grey and somehow balder than most grey. Their eyes are a bright aqua color and they have a slightly bemused look in their face. White tattoos around both eyes Other Notes:

@Bmon I'll try and address what I perceive to be the presented concerns: Lack of Transparency / Communication on the Git Hidden Dev Channels Slipping back into past bad practicies I'll give my 2 cents on this as someone who has served in most roles on the Dev team (excluding -headcoder & -balance team) as well as general staff leadership. This has little to do with the development team's commitment to being open and honest and everything to do with time and energy. Lack of Transparency / Communication Back in January/December, contributors were opening PRs at around 10-15 PRs A DAY, we had 2 active headcoders, 2 review team members, and 2 commit access members all with varying availability (some with almost none), it was impossible to keep up with the rate of these PRs and also provide the kind of communication you want, this rate of PRs decreased into the second semester of schooling for most of us but did not largely stop until late February; Furthermore, most people on the design team (such as myself) also serve in other roles and have to balance responsibilities. It is exhausting to keep up with it and I'm not always going to sacrifice 15 minutes of my day sometimes to leave reasoning behind a PR objection every time I have one (especially if I'm leaving 3-4 a week). It's not because I don't want to be transparent it's because I'm doing other important things like a) talking to my girlfriend b) doing my homework c) dealing with a dumpster fire in staffcoord as a HOS or d) simply doing code reviews / merges to get our PR count down. Making our dev-channel public will not fix this and will make it worse, it wont make me be more transparent, I will be less transparent and here's why: Hidden Dev Channels Players and contributors will likely never truly understand the perspective/experience/needs of the development team or staff team until they serve on them or a similar team. This isn't a jab at our contributors' empathy or behavior, it's just a simply a matter of having that collection of micro-experiences that changes the lens in which you look at things. The single hidden dev channel we have on the public discord is the only channel that is exclusive to development team members (it even excludes most GA's) minus a single headcoder-leadership channel we have on the staff discord. Why is this important? The obvious points have been covered, exploit discussion and GitHub disciplinary action discussion. Here's what's not necessarily been talked about I need a space where I can talk freely and privately with dev people I trust 100% It shields certain dev/staff politics from public view, all of us do not agree on everything and it can get to the point where we have fights behind closed doors. I do not want contributors or any player for that matter to be privy to what is said or to take it as an opportunity to butt in on a conversation they do not have a share in. Sometimes things that are said that are not necessarily true in the heat of the moment and has to be approached very cautiously and tenderly. This may even be the reason why certain controversial objections are not written out thoroughly, its a difficult choice for multiple dev team members to be openly in contradiction with each other on a PR because it reflects poorly on our collective vision and its invites all of us to participate in a potentially energy-draining drawn-out discussion, so we often work it out in this channel. Privacy is important to everyone, it's hard enough to find people who will invest the amount of time they do in our development team + are nearly completely in-line with leadership + we're able to work with them. I realize that we can look as if we're slipping back into bad past practices and its certainly always a concern that is on the back of my mind, I'm glad you bring this up because its always an important topic to revisit. I certainly don't think you have any bad intentions in mind either. More communication could always be better and our dev team needs to work on coming together to establish a central design vision. At this moment, most of our dev team is in the busiest moments of their year (school, works, life, etc) and have to balance it all with their responsibilites in a volunteer organization (i.g. paradise). We're going to be committed to being better about justifying objections in the future, however.