Realistically, how hard is it to get into SS13? I've heard about it a lot in the past (not so much lately, though)...

Realistically, how hard is it to get into SS13? I've heard about it a lot in the past (not so much lately, though). From the website, it looks like there are 4 servers - Do they still have games up every day? Are there frequently brand new players? I always wanted to get into this but the sheer about of information and complexity is honestly pretty overwhelming and reading the wiki causes me to believe that there's a pretty "set" community that doesn't want to put up with any sort of fuck ups. Though, it seems like the best way to “get it” is to just starting playing rounds with a unimportant role while trying your best to not to FUBAR the whole station.

Also, I used to enjoy reading the stories posed about SS13, so if you have any of those, feel free to post them.

Most roles you can get into pretty easy, most people will be willing to help, and admins, generally, are understanding. Best way, start as an assistant, follow what the wiki says for the tutorial, maybe learn some basic vending machine hacking if you can, get assigned an easy job from the HOP, or just ask over radio if anyone needs assistance over the radio. Personally I have only ever played on /vg/ and TG, both are decent.

Yeah I kind of thought of starting on the /tg/ station or goonstation. What about frequency of games on a daily basis? Also I understand that there will be certain players that you see all the time, as they're part of that community but are there often new players? I'm only asking because sometimes with niche games you can run into a circlejerk that's hard to break into - especially if the regulars have been playing together for years. Either way, I think I'll start trying to play tomorrow. So, thank you.

Still interested in any fun stories, though.

The game is super easy, but if you ask me all the servers I've tried are shit for one reason or another and the age of ss13 is dead for many old fans.

If you ignore the shitposting in the general, /vg/ actually offers one of the best SS13 communities. As long as you let people know you're new nobody cares if you fuck up.

I didn't even think to look for general. I'll check it out.

Just because it is the best community doesn't mean it is any good. It used to be 3x better than the sorry state it's in now.

There are games all day, although depending on your timezone there may be more or less players.
There are pretty often new players, and a lot of times people will be able to tell. As long as you are honest about no one will mind. Make sure you read the rules. There is some role play involved, so you have to be prepared for that. Also when telling people you are new, try to say it in way that makes sense in game. You know, like "I'm new to this job" or "I'm just an assistant I have no experience".

Honestly though, you shouldn't have any problems, especially after a few rounds go by. Although harder jobs can take forever to learn, or you may never learn them. Which is okay, you don't need to know everything to enjoy this game.

Most importantly, just try to enjoy yourself.

I know, I used to play constantly from Nexis' server up until 2015. Got back into it a month ago, and even if it's degenerated it's still easily one of the best servers for admin accountability and general style of play.

>but if you ask me all the servers I've tried are shit for one reason or another and the age of ss13 is dead for many old fans.

This. I rarely play SS13 nowadays and when I do, I play Colonial Marines to shoot xenos.

Way too many people have shit attitudes, read other people's logs with inflections, get offended and greatly distort events to turn into shit storms to their favor. Rarely will anyone actually have sensible dialogue that doesn't involve arbitrarily yelling fuck and robusting people wanton then cry when they get their shit rightfully smacked.

It's a pretty fun game at first when you have no fucking clue as to what is going on but it loses the luster once you understand "what is going on". My first game, 6 years ago (holy shit it has been that fucking long) I spawned on goon's donut station, walked down a hallway then got spaced by some guy all in ten seconds. Part of the game's entertainment value is being in a completely new world without a single clue or objective in mind and seeing a round unfold.

The hardest aspect of playing ss13 isn't the getting in, it's the staying in surrounded by some of the worst communities on the internet

Honestly the roleplay is what I'm most interested in. I'm not typically into RP but in a game like this, mild RP seems pretty much necessary. Despite never having played, just reading the the jobs, it seems obvious that any sort of metagaming would ruin the flow. I mean that as in character knowledge vs. out of character knowledge being abused, if that makes sense.

>I mean that as in character knowledge vs. out of character knowledge being abused, if that makes sense.

Oh this happens.
>round start
>that one faggot rushes a certain room with a certain beneficial item
>without fail, every fucking round
>gathers a collection of improvised weapons "just in case" and doesn't do anything but play vigilante, antagonizing innocents and fucking everything up being a self important prick

And then it's up to you to subtly fuck them over round after round doing indirect things to them that harm them such as denying them medical help, brigging them or cutting them off from an exit in an otherwise hazardous environment.

Then, there's becoming a traitor, someone who actually has free reign to grief others and that is when you walk up to them and shoot them in the face.

Yeah I have never been big into it either, but I really enjoy it in this game. Yeah, metagaming is frowned upon generally. I mean, technically there is a small amount that is necessary, because you may need to check the wiki often to learn how to do new things, or just to figure out what is even going on, but much more than that is generally frowned upon. I am sure you will get the hang of it.

I guess I don't see a problem with having your character know where certain items are, assuming that each round isn't a totally new set of identities but more of continuing story line despite death or whatnot. That'd be like having to justify why you know where a certain room pertaining to your role is. But I do get what you're saying with the rest of it. I haven't played the game though and I guess it'd just be that you'd have to drawn a line somewhere.

Learn to play Engineer, from there you have the foundation for any other job.

Having charcter know where basic stuff is is fine, because the crew should at least get a basic map of the station, it make sense in universe. But always getting the same things every round regardless of your role, and always doing the same types of actions is pretty shit. Also, death is meant to be permanent(to an extent). If you die, you are dead and anything you experience while you are dead is not meant to be used when you go back into the round. And each round is meant to be separate.

Problem is that most servers have EVERY character know where all the items are, know how to peform every type of operation and at the smell of an antagonist flip their tables, unzip their chloral and go running around maint hunting for murder

The community in this game has grown extremely stale and walking into it now is a guarenteed bad time

Yeah, I'd agree that acting outside of your job/role doesn't seem right. I was actually under the impression that item placement and layout was randomized to certain extent. Just reading the rules for the /tg/station lead me to believe that you could play the same character across rounds, if doing so wouldn't be obnoxious or unbelievable and that dying then starting a new round would be like a Groundhog Day situation.

Obviously discretion and self-limitation would play a big part in having that not end up a slippery slope of far-fetched explanations.

>Characters are otherwise allowed to know everything about ingame mechanics or antagonists, as well as keep persistent friendships or relationships with other characters when not for the purpose of unfair advantage by teaming up together for little IC reason.

It all boils down to most people still derriving their fun from """"winning"""" space station 13. And that boils down to a deathmatch between the antags and the weaponized crew with as much powergaming as possible, in an engine clearly not made to have its combat treated seriously. A paradigm shift in the playerbase is the only possible way of fixing the game itself

You are allowed to be the same character, and you can talk about other rounds as a different "Shift". It is kind of hard to explain, most people who keep the same name do end up getting some renown, and people will treat you accordingly to how they know you.

That does sound very anti-fun and really not what interested me in game when I first heard about it years ago. It was really all the crazy antics and stories that seemed unbelievable, almost like they were made up talking about a fake game. I have no doubt that I missed the peak glory years of the game but I'm still gonna give it go, even if just to say I tried it. At the time of hearing about it I was still way too obsessed with MMOs and couldn't be pulled away to play anything else. Oh well.

There is still plenty of fun to be had, lots of people just sort of become jaded with it after a while. You are new so you will still get that fresh Greyshirt experience.

That's the problem with every flavor of the month game Sup Forums runs into.

I'm going to bed now. Thanks for the thread and all the information. I'll probably be trying it out tomorrow on the /tg/ server.

OP, people are missing the most important thing. While the mechanics are incredible, the game plays like a fucking horse turd. I hope you're incredibly patient.

Absolute garbage community. The game itself is not hard once you understand how to use the UI except for the Atmos role. It has been watered down and dumbed down over time.

Whatever happened to /tg/ station the other day? I couldn't connect to their serbs, their site and their wiki.

Losing is
Fun.
Winning is
Boring

now read the first letter of every line to discover a better game.

You have to figure out how to stick a 13-inch Bad Dragon horse dildo up your ass first.
Then come ERP with me on Citadel or Vore.

I used to play back in the good old days of goonstation. I remember being a shithead chef and helping out a traitor -- gibbed a bunch of people that tried apprehending him in the kitchen of donut station. The sec officer also stunned himself with his baton as he tried to arrest me. He was shortly gibbed.
I also remember my first round as changeling... I was masquerading as an electrician. I abducted players running outside electronics, and quickly dragged them to the maintenance tunnels right underneath. I stored their husks in one locker and had almost a dozen shoved there at one point. No one even knew it was changeling until the round ended.

Damn, electronics was so fun as a traitor. I cloned the syndicate singularity generators at one point. Made about 3-5 and set them off. Other time, cloaking devices. The entire station was overrun with invisible assistsnts and traitors and it devolved into complete ansrchy. Also, being rev leader and having an army of assistants toolbox the crap out of every fucking sec officer they come across. Then some fuckhead releases plasma and puts it on fire and now bombs have gone off, the ai is dead, tiles pulled out of floors, powers out, there's dead assistants everywhere now and the captains the last one left and has stuffed himself in a locker on some remote part of the z level and almost everyone is fucking dead.

This game made me feel like a genuinely bad person at times because of the level of thinking you engaged in when coming up with a plan.

Man, I can still remember all the blood on those fire extinguishers and the poo... the poo. Shoving it in spray bottles and stuff. God damn those were the days

Lake forest whiffle ball?

What's up with it nowadays? Is it still running servers on the same old IPs or what?
I only played a few rounds and that was well over a year ago, maybe two, I don't remember. I do remember dying, turning into a zombie, and licking all the food in a bar before they kindly took me to the lava pool for death, I didn't do much since I wasn't used to the controls or mechanics as opposed to SS13.

Contrary to popular belief there aren't that much complex systems in SS13, save for the most autistic shit like atmosphere.
The only thing that's really fucky are the controls, it'll take a while to get used to them but once you are you'll be a-okay.

Just keep the wiki at hand.

Ruined by a fucktarded admin and an even more fucktarded community.
If only SOMEONE ELSE came up with Lifeweb.

>SS13 is a flavor of the month game
Are you retarded?