My View On Species Differentiation

[fludd12]

 

Preface

I'm sure I've beat this lich-horse back to dust several times before, but I realized a few things which have recently tinted my point of view on species differentiation in a different way; something many suggestions do not appear to take into account. I guess this is a sort of open letter to suggestion-makers and such on how I personally believe racial abilities and species differentiation should work. Take it with a grain of salt, I suppose, since I haven't done any true studying into the topic of game design at any school, but I've been attempting to hone my talent in the field with textbooks and such.

 

The Problem

Currently, the general term used for how our race system works is "Human+," or the dreaded label of "Humans with Gimmicks". Each race is a subset of the base human, but with certain traits, such as telepathy, or needing nitrogen instead of oxygen. This is very easy to design for, and makes sense with how our code works - each species is a subset of the human class. However, you all seem to be unhappy with this arrangement - indeed, there's been several complaints about how species should be more than just humans with traits. Some of those complaints have come even from me.

 

How it is now

The current strategy people are using is developing abilities or traits. Giving slime people the ability to regrow limbs. Giving Kidan the trait of more armor. These are all easy suggestions to think of, provide for more varied racial code, and yet are easy to code for. And, in most cases, they're not particularly bad ideas! However, this is not the answer you are looking for. Giving species more abilities and more debuffs, or even less debuffs, will never make species truly different from humans. They'll always be humans with traits and abilities, which, to be fair, is what we know. We know what humans are, so it's easy to extrapolate "That, but different."

 

Now, his is a bit of a strange thing to bring up in a species topic, but you'll see why in a moment. The other big complaint I see popping up with increasing regularity is the slow but sure loss of character species variety on the station, as well as the progressive decline of the 'medium' in our purported Medium Roleplay, which our staff has been trying pretty hard to maintain.

 

Form follows function

My personal view on this subject has changed a bit, but here's how I see it: Roleplay starts with how one plays their character. This is fairly obvious at face value, but it goes a bit deeper. Your character is defined by the ideas you have for it, yes, but also by the way your character plays in the game. It's why there are character archetypes for different playstyles; why the bulkier, heavier looking races are generally better fighters in fantasy games. Part of this is design affecting gameplay, but another part is gameplay affecting design. It's the latter topic we want to look at here - because, what better way to get someone to roleplay as an alien, than to get them to feel less human.

 

We need to stop thinking of species as having buffs or debuffs. This will make balance much harder, but it will result in a much, much more rewarding experience for players. The species you play should influence the decisions you make, resulting in a change to the way you behave, resulting in a change to how you play your character. A Grey, currently, could go the whole round acting exactly like a human, and nobody'd bat an eye. In fact, so long as their needs are met, most species can do this, with exceptions being IPCs to some extent, and Diona.

 

What we do right

What we want to ensure this changes, and that races feel truly alien, is to change this. Have a race play so radically differently from human, that your instincts to how to play the character changes. Not only that, but everyone else's instincts will also have to change regarding your character. This is part of why I support the idea of vulpkanin/tajaran colorblindness, though perhaps I don't 100% agree with the way the current PR handles it. Suddenly, your perspective of the game changes RADICALLY. At a glance, you can no longer tell some things that you used to, while other things stand out surprisingly more. For IPCs, it's a little bit less pronounced, but still there. You no longer care about the same materials or supplies humans do, but care a lot more for basic tools. A lack of a chef means lack of food for a human, but a power outage threatens your ability to move at full speed in a fight. Diona also have this concept - a blow from an energy sword would spook any other species to running to the medbay, but you can walk it off - in fact, you're forced to walk it off, making you put a lot more consideration into where you're going and how.

 

What I can do

I'll be doing my very best to release pull requests following this sort of design logic, but it'll be a long road - both because of my [lack of] coding prowess, and due to the sheer intensity of the task I am undertaking. I'm sure my opinion is not a universal one; any changes I make according to this, I'll take some extra consideration into public concern over, so if you want a say in how this goes, a Github account is free and will let you make comments directly on the code I change.

 

Feel free to post thoughts, suggestions, or complaints - this is one massive text wall I wrote while sleep deprived at 12:50 AM.

 

[KasparoVv]

 

I just want to make it clear that the colourblindness PR was changed to meet demands as was required. That's not to say it can't be made mandatory, the default option or whatever in the future, but I don't think it's wise to hold out hope that it will due to the duality of existing opinions on the matter (something I was surprised to find so controversial despite the rationale and outs that were offered).

 

I'd like to see where this leads.

 

Edited February 6, 2017 by Guest

[Spacemanspark]

 

If I wanted to play something that was similar to a human I'd play a damn human.

+1

 

[Kluys]

 

The main issue with species diversity and that whole pr was that if you want to correctly diversify a race you should make it diverse to everyone. The pr in question added something that could have annoyed people playing the race while not diversifying the race in any way towards say a human perspective towards the vulp/taj/whatever.

 

I am not going to start the argument again but please when you make a pr ask yourself the question "does this actually change the race from a third perspective or is the change purely cosmetic and only accessible by the singular person playing the character?"

 

[dadols]

 

My Opinion

 

I think that species should be radically different like IPCs are, let's not talk about how weak against EMPs they are and stuff,

but about how good they are in an RP context, as an IPC (at least for me) it`s easier to RP or get into an RP situation,

because I feel comfortable as my own race/character;

Our goal is to get the players/users comfortable with their character and give them more opportunities to RP;

(Because this Server is mainly based on Medium/High-RP)

 

Most of us choose a race because that race represents you more than "X" race,

so our goal is to give more opportunities to RP = more "different" races,

but! at the same time We have to balance and add depth to the races we currently have.

 

IPCs have lot of opportunities to RP even more than other races, why so? Because IPCs are different.

(This is an RP Server, the best way to make it better is to give more opportunities to RP)

 

The main thing to do is to give more opportunities to RP, without harming their "game".

 

 

Unrelevant Idea

Most of the races We currently have are branches of our main race (Human), so why not to create Branches of other races from an already existing race?

 

 

+1 to everything you said.

 

[Rurik]

I'd have to agree with everything you mentioned. It may not help immediately, but down the long road it will.

[Shadeykins]

 

You can still do this via traits or exceptions. Unathi sandals/Tajaran glovesnipping being mandatory was an example of this.

 

All the cats had to immediately steal the calip- wirecutters.

 

[Allfd]

 

If the goal is to alter the race so that the players feel like they are playing a different race and behave in a different manner because of it then that is a non-trivial change.

 

Not everything is mechanical, nobody decided mechanically that Vox would be crazy space bird greytide. That just kind of happened naturally in part because they were added and all the early players really only had to go on a few lines from the wiki as far as lore.

 

• Vox can understand common fairly well but speak it poorly. They tend to creel or shriek as punctuation. KHAAAAK! SCRAAAAHK! Their laughter sounds like 'kikiki'.

   

  Vox often insult other species. Humans are 'meat'. Unathi are 'rotten' due to their colour. Skrell are 'leaking' or 'slippery'. Tajarans are 'mouldy'.

   

  Vox tend to jeer a lot about how their victims are treeless, that their lungs are full of dust, and such. People usually have no idea what they're on about. Which is fine because the Vox don't put much thought into it either.

   

  Vox have two tongues - one large one for swallowing and tasting, and another in the roof of the beak for vocalizing softer/subnotes within Vox-pidgin. Vox-pidgin itself is bewilderingly complex and defies any concerted study by linguists.

   

  The Vox are a very secretive species and so detailed IC knowledge of the Vox should only be used by those currently playing them.

 

 

This little bit of guidance and the annoyances of not being able to use regular clothing or magboots have created the thriving Vox culture we have today.

 

Ya ya, meat cappy is crappy for take Voxygen

SKREEE!

 

A problem that seems to occur whenever this issue is raised is one of intent. Species diversity means many things to many people entirely separated from then the discussion as to if species differentiation is a goal.

 

[Shadeykins]

 

If the goal is to alter the race so that the players feel like they are playing a different race and behave in a different manner because of it then that is a non-trivial change.

 

Not everything is mechanical, nobody decided mechanically that Vox would be crazy space bird greytide. That just kind of happened naturally in part because they were added and all the early players really only had to go on a few lines from the wiki as far as lore.

 

• Vox can understand common fairly well but speak it poorly. They tend to creel or shriek as punctuation. KHAAAAK! SCRAAAAHK! Their laughter sounds like 'kikiki'.

   

  Vox often insult other species. Humans are 'meat'. Unathi are 'rotten' due to their colour. Skrell are 'leaking' or 'slippery'. Tajarans are 'mouldy'.

   

  Vox tend to jeer a lot about how their victims are treeless, that their lungs are full of dust, and such. People usually have no idea what they're on about. Which is fine because the Vox don't put much thought into it either.

   

  Vox have two tongues - one large one for swallowing and tasting, and another in the roof of the beak for vocalizing softer/subnotes within Vox-pidgin. Vox-pidgin itself is bewilderingly complex and defies any concerted study by linguists.

   

  The Vox are a very secretive species and so detailed IC knowledge of the Vox should only be used by those currently playing them.

 

 

This little bit of guidance and the annoyances of not being able to use regular clothing or magboots have created the thriving Vox culture we have today.

 

Ya ya, meat cappy is crappy for take Voxygen

SKREEE!

 

A problem that seems to occur whenever this issue is raised is one of intent. Species diversity means many things to many people entirely separated from then the discussion as to if species differentiation is a goal.

 

Thanks for bringing this up. I noticed it was clipped out of the revised Vox lore, and added it back in.

 

Vox-Pidgin is the only known language in use aboard Vox arkships, leaving many Vox to either neglect the use of Galactic Common or simply not learn it in the first place. Those that do learn Galactic Common have a tendency to make heavy-handed use of various epithets. The most common examples include referring to Humans as "meat", Unathi as 'rotten', Skrell as 'leaking' or 'slippery' and Tajara as 'mouldy'. Vox are also known to jeer about how the lungs of other species are "full of dust", and how those they raid are "treeless". While linguists have theorized that the treeless insult likely derives from the groves aboard Vox arkships, there is presently no clear understanding as to why Vox attribute other species to having "lungs full of dust".

 

[MarsMond]

 

I think one problem about species diversity is that you can only do so much mechanical difference with humanoid races, and seeing Vox, aren't they "just" mostly humans with gimmicks, like oxygen is toxic to them, BUT are quite diverse as they are played diffrently. For that, i guess look at Star Trek. I would say the other species seem different enough, although they are just humans in costumes, some "scripted" advantages. It does fit SS13 pretty good i would say, we basically have the human base sprite, and then change a bit around to make it look alien, the scripted advantages are the small mechanical changes every race has. Now the problem is, what is the way you want a certain race to be played, and how do we get people to play that way? It's especially problematic with existing races/chars, not sure how many people are willing to change their chars. Would be a bit like someone plays a Vulcan as a very emotional character, or a peaceloving hippie Klingon, now Star Trek lore comes out. How do you make that fit?

I think code-, or maybe just even spritewise, we can't/won't do races that are radically diffrent from humanoids, i mean i would certainly want to try out a quadruped race, which might just have one hand, beeing their mouth, but the problem is, how do you sprite it nicely with 32x32 pixel i think, and who wants to fit every item onto that sprite? And codewise, we do have every race beeing a subtype of human, including humans, and any check for a crew does work on this human type i think, which has two legs, two arms, a head, a lower and an upper body, can't really fit a quadruped race there, can you?

 

[dadols]

 

4 Legs

Fit 4 legs in a sprite and make it so that 2 legs = 1 leg, so if someone removes 1 leg from you, you loose 2 legs ,really simple?

 

Just an Idea.

 

[shazbot194]

 

4 Legs

Fit 4 legs in a sprite and make it so that 2 legs = 1 leg, so if someone removes 1 leg from you, you loose 2 legs ,really simple?

 

Just an Idea.

 

Or if you have a LOT of time, you could redefine a lot and have it so the 2 arms function as legs and your head also count as a hand, this would have the benefit of not needing to rewrite any aiming/damage code, but this would probably need a copy then rewrite of a fourth of all the human limb code, but it would still be a sub-type of human. Can't help you with the sprite though, but a 32x48/32x64 sprite could possibly work.

 

[Allfd]

It could be simple mob, that is sort of the best that could be easily done.

[Mass595]

 

Or we could not take the easy way out and actually attempt to code in mobs with 4 legs and other unique species properties. Of course it will be difficult as hell, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored entirely. This whole concept is going to take a lot of time to be done properly, requiring an enormous amount of brain-storming, coding, balancing, lore-writing, etc, but I feel like the end result will be more than worth it. Even after changes are implemented, there are going to be disagreements, re-balancing, adjustments to be made, etc, but again;

Why avoid such an amazing idea simply because it would take a lot of work to make a reality?

 

+1 I'm in full support of this.

 

[flimflamm]

 

I do really love the notion of drastically different/non-humanoid races.

 

One possible variation which comes to mind immediately is a 2-tile big (a fat worm which drags a tail?) creature, which would be instantly and completely (at least visually) distinct regardless of what mechanics we apply to it. Having at least one functional arm-type appendage and the ability to work consoles is about the only necessity to be employed by NT, and anything else beyond that I think is up for grabs.

 

The other side of this conceptual coin would be some sort of tiny species. I can imagine a dwarf like race which is slow and unrobust in every way (maybe each tile for them has 4 quadrants they can move to, which would double their walking distance and effectively half their movement speed). Mechanically perhaps they could be picked up by other players and shoved into (bluespace) bags.

 

The craziest Idea which I can come up with is for the creation of a pair of races which have a some kind of symbiotic relationship, maybe even with an ability to 'merge' and 'un-merge'. When merged both players would need to contribute to the control of the new combined entity, somehow, and the advantage would be that their previously flimsy races when combined form a much more robust entity (the disadvantage being shared control of a shared body).

 

All three of these ideas would be nightmarish to code for, but they certainly would provide races which can be called "different".

 

[MarsMond]

 

I do really love the notion of drastically different/non-humanoid races.

 

One possible variation which comes to mind immediately is a 2-tile big (a fat worm which drags a tail?) creature, which would be instantly and completely (at least visually) distinct regardless of what mechanics we apply to it. Having at least one functional arm-type appendage and the ability to work consoles is about the only necessity to be employed by NT, and anything else beyond that I think is up for grabs.

 

The other side of this conceptual coin would be some sort of tiny species. I can imagine a dwarf like race which is slow and unrobust in every way (maybe each tile for them has 4 quadrants they can move to, which would double their walking distance and effectively half their movement speed). Mechanically perhaps they could be picked up by other players and shoved into (bluespace) bags.

 

The craziest Idea which I can come up with is for the creation of a pair of races which have a some kind of symbiotic relationship, maybe even with an ability to 'merge' and 'un-merge'. When merged both players would need to contribute to the control of the new combined entity, somehow, and the advantage would be that their previously flimsy races when combined form a much more robust entity (the disadvantage being shared control of a shared body).

 

All three of these ideas would be nightmarish to code for, but they certainly would provide races which can be called "different".

 

We kinda have the merge/unmerge thing, as diona and diona nymph, and as cortical borer. Diona don't get much benefit, cortical borer can boost with chems, but also cause problems with their takeover and all that. And we do have that inserted AIs into an active rigsuit can move the person inside the rigsuit, so two players, one body at once is possible.

 

About the small race, we would end up with a 16x16 big sprite, not sure if you can still make one visually fitting race, that they need two steps for one tile can probably done by making them only move every other step, the other steps are just sprite offsets, don't think you can make a real subgrid for byond, though basically doubling the size of the map, as every tile gets smaller, and 1x1 big mobs become 2x2 would be interesting, the small race could have holes hidden around the station, so they can move through walls other species can't move through.

 

The 2 tile long race would probably be a bit like the snaketail, a buse only body accessory, or like a centaur, would be interesting what happens if they need to turn around in a 1 tile wide area, can they only move backwards? A problem with diffrent ammount of legs/arms/other appendage is that you can't really use the current targetting doll, unless the new appendages are on a new tile, so if you would make a centaur, you hit the frontlegs if you aim for the legs and click the front-part, maybe miss if you aim for the head and attack the back-part, or default to hitting the body.

 

[Mass595]

Remember, the whole concept here is increasing the differentiation of the species we already have, not introducing new species. I like the ideas, though this is probably not the topic for them.