So I feel like there’s three different issues being discussed.
The first is the overarching Gameplay/Direction of the Game the second being the reasons log’s being removed, and the third and probably the most important is the transparency of the management team.
I’ll try my best to address them one by one.
Firstly: Where’s the game going? what are we doing? what’s the roadmap?
A really good starting point is the published roadmap available here: Roadmap · GitHub.
The Current Dev team headed up by Drathek have done a good job of coordinating that roadmap and what everyone’s individually working on, but I get the inkling that you (and others) want something a bit more tangible in terms of the overall direction and what we’re working towards on both a staff and player front.
For that, the answer is pretty simple and that’s that we’re trying to capture the SOUL ESSENCE of CM and improve on it, without outwardly discarding and removing features which don’t contribute to the end game. What do I mean by that? Features Like techwebs, vehicles, agents, antags and others all seemed to get removed instead of fixed, and I think that building the core gameplay up is vital. The CM I dream for is one that’s equal parts Aysemtrical shooter and Roleplay experience. You should feel like you’re climbing an uphill battle as a Marine and I can safely say that the WINRATE statistic is definitely intended to be an important, but not all-encompassing metric towards defining the aysemtric component of the game. While we’re not aiming for a ratio, the golden idea is to make it so that Marines NEED teamwork and Collaboration in order to eliminate the perfect killing machine.
On the topic of Roleplay, I personally want to get the events and antag systems back up and running, stuff that includes bringing back the intrigue whether it be with a potentially dangerous research or that suspicious survivor. MPs turned into mini-mods because there wasn’t survivors and research to grief investigate.
On the broader level its adding features that we all enjoy, things like the Tank and Other vehicles like the arc (but only when population allows) should be coming back into rotation. Normally these things were admin spawns (and events) tied to population, but as a whole I hope we can find mechanical solutions which allow for this kind of emergent and combined arms gameplay, in a way which preserves the lowpop loop.
Now as you’ve probably realised, I’m a Host and Not the Dev, and there’s a reason that Drathek (and the gang) has free reign over this component. My ideas are pretty bad, and I personally believe that CM is the kind of WYCI project. My quest to learn DM is a tough one but I’m learning and YOU should too if you want to be actively involved.
Where did the Logs go?
As nice as it is to have beautifully (and sometimes IC rendered) logs for each situation 1) they were causing delays on processing waiting for staff to do them, 2) they were tiresome for individual staff, as it tended to be a metric for progressing to adminship and 3) We mostly never even used them and looked at the logs themselves to verify and make our own context. Damning I know, but its a lot easier to check the logs manually, and I think it’s unfair to force mods to essentially waste time posting them ( even if it does help public discourse transparency ). That being said, if logs become a disputed part of a report, its only fair that they’re posted, but this onus will probably be on the resolving manager and not the poor mod assigned.
Last but not least, transparency of the management team.
Look there’s an elephant in the room here and that is that I’ve probably been the least active I’ve ever been in the last few weeks because of the whole doxing situation. While I’m not here looking for sympathy, I do think it’s fair to say that I’ve been neglecting a lot of external community engagement simply out of the fact that I’ve almost lost my job because of certain members of the community.
I don’t think it’s fair to CM and the rest of you to do that though, and I’m making a personal commitment to step up my availability and my responsiveness. Forrest (baring the fact he’s currently offline due to BT), has been continuously working overtime to try cover my ass, he’s just as accessible as I should have been.
You can reach out to us anytime on the forum or discord and we should get back to you within a day or two tops. If we don’t, you have permission to ping, ding, bwoink, bump, whatever you feel like publicly or private to make sure we see the issue. (As long as you’re respectful about it ).
People in here talk about “bad faith” and “negativity” and speak about management as if we’ve clocked out, but the cold depressing truth is that we’re a bunch of veteran players who’ve made the stupid decision to take on additional responsibility. Sometimes we fall short and I don’t think that’s something to shy away from. The Depressing fact is that I personally am basically here to play medic and try improve CM and keep it turning over. If we need to make a playtime portal (and stats page) to showcase your hours, maybe that’s a fun project someone can work on, but the results would show that barring the last while in my case, every member of management is active in game.
Here’s a fun story, The whole slur drama had been brewing for like 6 months and the Whole R word situation was viewed in the eyes of many as a loophole and someone decided to basically close it. Yes, there’s a lot of me defending grim publicly and wrangling why deltard was banned, but that accurately reflected the internal conversation at the time. The point i’m getting at, is that a lot of the time CM Management is reactionary, and that’s something that has its pros and cons. Yes, banning the R word is controversial, but I understand the reasons why. Yes, banning Deltard was overeach and while I understood the justification, it’s pretty clear that it was the wrong decision.
It didn’t take 20 drama threads and people contacting my work to prove the point. The most compelling bit of the argument was steel point (moderator) fact-checking me and going hey this is literally not being abused respectfully in a public thread. You can argue we shouldn’t have done in the first place, and that’s fair, but the reality is that one person basically got the ball rolling on this and we ran with it because of the reasons they presented. The only reason we’ve switched the R word from contextually banned to not is that it was being used excessively and it needed to be nipped in the bud. We can debate this all you want (and i’m happy to do so), but the core argument is that the majority of use wasn’t kosher.
CM works when passionate people get involved and just do things. Bureaucracy stagnates. Sometimes those things fuck up, sometimes they aren’t great and sometimes they’re downright terrible. Management is an extension of that. The worst part is that the community and how some peeps participate genuinely isn’t helpful and results in an attitude where we end up yeeting features, making crazy policy announcements and shying away from a community that we once loved.
** The TLDR; get involved. Join Staff and come tell us how we should be moderating chat. Become a Dev and balance the game the way you see fit. Be a Mentor and teach people OP OT recipes. Join a WL and improve RP. **
And last but not least, I stand by what I said in the previous thread. I’m sorry it’s harsh but it’s the truth.
If you’re going to be toxic, or use slurs or basically not act respectfully on the forums, the discord or in game, then you genuinely should find another server. I now have even less tolerance for it then I did before being Dox’d
There’s another person on the side of the screen, whether it be me sitting here typing an essay, the marine who just friendly-fired you, or the lurker who just solo-cap’d you. There’s a difference between marine bravado and in-game banter, or blowing off some steam in dsay against being a dick OOC.
Don’t be a dick and you’ll be fine