My experience with them is that they are just kind of rude.
I find it quite ironic, that a player who made so many appeals ( some of them on perma bans) is so atrocious at handling them as an admin. He often doesnt respond to appeals ( or just writes āNoā) and locks them, sometimes before other admins can even give their input. Also gibbing people instead of using adminprison is not based. Its very very cringe.
As a sec main often biased towards the redshirts, a lot of the time ruling in their favour. I also often feel like the stuff he does in game, would be a ground for a ban he himself would bestow upon someone.
Iāve seen some banbaiting from them for sure.
January
April
To lose a players trust in such a short time is not a good look at all for @Velvet.
I canāt recall a good interaction I have had from this admin. In fact I am surprised they even got admin, considering their history, especially the ERP incident.
also I would not trust Winter Darkraven to bathe my dog without drowning it
be me
pray for I think it was something to do with bartending or clownery
get cat ears
complain
centcomm update: Wingo Pucci is now valid
wut
space myself
I canāt name any good experiences Iāve had with them handling my reports. Every report I have had handled with them is handled with a poorly worded, brief reply. Usually itāll be closed with just a single message, without any chance to clarify or interact. Thatās not to say that these reports shouldnāt have been rejected, but that theyāre very quick to brush off and ignore reports, without giving the player a chance to have a back and forth.
Theyāre an LRP player at heart from my experience, most of the interactions they give are short or meant to troll the player, not engage them or give them a good time. They also like to powergame, not to interact from a position of strength, but to turn the game into a challenge run to see how many bodies they can pile. As wizard, they will optimize to kill and round remove. As traitor, they usually go for killing all of security and command with maybe one or two parting insults with the already very dead bodies here and there. But itās not just antagonist behavior. One of my most recent experiences was with them playing their AI āShogun,ā and while I was engaging the research staff as a xeno and trying to interact, they ignited the plasma in my chamber the very second I became a queen without input from anyone else. I wonāt say these things arenāt justifiable, but I will say they donāt make for a good experience.
What I mean by this is, Iād like to see Winter interact more with people, and treat them better. Iād also like to see them give more room for roleplay and be more thoughtful for the players behind the characters theyāre sharing the server with and handling the reports of. As it stands, I dread seeing Winter as the admin handling my report, and fear interacting with them in-game.
shotgunned me to death and gibbed me because they thought my xenobio arm was an armblade, got banned for a week from sec (which is already a very light punishment) and the ban has magically and mysteriously vanished 1 or 2 days in. Considering beestation cares so much about how staff handle themselves the other admins seem to let winter get away with an awful lot of stuff that most people would be banned for.
I was about to come here and write something about the xeno queen situation. jesus christ that was bad - you were trying to roleplay, leaving obvious flaws and not going for the instant win options as xeno that would allow you to escape, but they just instantly pressed ignite button the microsecond they saw you evolve. itās not like you were slashing away/trying your hardest to kill, you didnāt even put any acid anywhere or done anything but lay a few walls not obstructing view from camera or the igniter.
It was just, not ācoolā of them to act this way, and while it is justifiable as you were a xeno, itās just not a behavior iād like to deal with as a player myself.
Iāll add this because Iām seeing now itās not just me, I also noticed the lack of accountability. But first, Iāll say a lot of the things she will do are ātechnicallyā within the rules. Yes, they will ruin someoneās experience, and make roleplay impossible, but she conducted herself within the rules set for her except for maybe the one subjective one. But it did feel like the way she conducts herself would get a new moderator or new player their position revoked or a tempban.
If I had just became an admin, and I responded to a report with āNo,ā or closed it without giving a chance for clarification or a reply, I would expect and accept being demoted or getting a mark. So I also would like to see more of an official response to the behavior or an acknowledgement, I didnāt realize it was this bad because usually misconduct is handled more openly and how things are going gives the impression that itās not just my experience, but people who do make reports donāt get far, get buried, the punishment is lessened, or the prior offenses arenāt taken into account. I want to trust Winter and know that if I make a report and provide good evidence, that itāll be handled and not brushed aside, even if itās on an admin.
Keep this on topic. This is staff feedback not discussion and accusations.
Right now this is probably one of the biggest issues in the community and Ive heard a LOT about it, so I figured Id just put my opinion out there. Ill start with my personal experiences with them.
My Personal Experiences:
Player
Winter and I are both regulars on bee and Ive seen them around a lot, thus Ive gotten a very good idea of their playstyle. With everything Iāve seen I can confidently say they currently dont fit on sage at all. Iāve yet to see them in a round where they hadnāt gathered the most powerful items they had access to as fast as possible. I remember one round recently where I was a lawyer and they started off by rushing tools to find out the wires and call them out on sec comms. This playstyle is fine and would be a lot fun on other servers, however it clashes awfully on bee. While playing I rarely hear them speak, and if they do its only to shout out orders or make a sarcastic comment or joke.
They play security a lot, and whenever they do it becomes an infinitely worse round for the antagonists. They seem dedicated to getting every antag red text and ignore any rules that may get in their way. Two specific incidents come to mind, I remember once where they shuttle called the second a clock cult was hinted at, in the call reason they put āto force them to summonā. I also had a round with them recently where I was found out to be a tot by forgetting to set my agent id. Although I was able to warp away, next I saw winter they where wandering maints with full riot armor and a syringe gun to turn me into a slime carrying beepsky behind them. Again this would be fine on any other server, however on bee where a large portion of the antags including myself actually try to roleplay, its awful. Whenever I see Winter on the sec team when Iām an antag I immediately drop whatever gimmick or joke im going for and powergame the best stuff I can.
Overall I donāt think Ive had a single positive experience with them personally, Im sure theyād be a lot of fun on tg or lrp servers, but they are a very poor fit for bee. Despite all these negitives I can say theyāre very competent. One of the better ss13 players Ive met in fact. If they changed thier playstyle to fit more with the server I think they would actually be a very well liked player. However they havent seemed to change at all despite reciving many notes and bans for incidents similar to the ones Ive mentioned above makes me doubt they want to fit on bee.
Admin
To start on a positive note, the few tickets I have been involved with that included winter, they where fast to reply and seemed to know how to check things quickly. However this does not make up for their poor communication and stubbornness. I was banned awhile ago by Winter, I personally believe the ban was made in error due to them not looking deeply enough into the situation, but this has little to do with my issues with them as an admin. I brought up many points in my ban appeal why I believed it was an error and should be lessened to a note or removed entirely. Instead of addressing these points they replied with deflections until silently slipping the ban under the rug and locking it without accepting or denying. Replies like āWhy Appealā and āThe bans over anyways so Ill just lock thisā where completely useless an ignored the point of the appeal (which I had specified, I didnt want the ban on my record and didnāt care about the length).
Others:
Iāve become friends with a lot of bee regulars over my playtime here and Iāve spoken to most of them about winter at some point or another. So Iāve heard many things on both sides. One player had a very high opinion of Winter, apparently they where a great personal coach and taught them a lot about the game. However a vast majority of the people Iāve spoken to have even worse opinions of them then me. Iāve heard horror stories of Winter carrying a shotgun out on green alert and shooting innocent people who shoved them because that made them angry. And as soon as they ahelp it theyāre told to make an admin report instead, which usually scares most players off as they donāt trust Winter not to metagrudge them over the report. Granted most of these stories are probably exaggerated as they where shared in confidence among friends. But the sheer volume of reports shows an alarming pattern in the regular community.
Nearly everyone Ive spoken too about Winter thinks they have some sort of invincibility to the servers rules. I personally have my full trust in the admin team, and know there are things going on behind the curtain. However, I donāt blame people for taking away this impression. Every time it seems Winter is receiving actual punishment its quickly taken away and replaced with a short concise āwe are handling it internallyā. This has generated a lot of mistrust, as from the outside no change has been seen. It appears as if they are above the rules, and cant be held accountable for anything. While I know this isnāt the case I must admit I think with all the incidents that Winter has piled up, they would have received a VERY harsh ban by now if they where a normal player. This shouldnt be the case, as an admin should be held to āhigher standardsā.
Conclusion
In the end this isnāt a post just to rip on Winter, I want to lay out the problems and possible solutions from lightest to most drastic.
Problems
-
Winterās playstyle does not fit in the server at all
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For players they disagree with, they are an extremely short and difficult admin to deal with
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The vast majority of the player community dislikes them
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The way they are treated actively decreases the players trust towards the otherwise wonderful admin team
Solutions?:
-
Winter changes their play style and joins the bee community, being held to the standards of normal players. This solution is the easiest and nicest one! However I donāt believe its very likely. As it seems clear to me that Winter has no intention of changing thier playstyle.
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Internal discussions are made more public, if the admins where to at least hint at some of the action taken then many many more players would be fine with Winter.
-
An admin strike or demotion, this is by far the most drastic and not likely to happen. Despite this, I believe it will become more and more likely the longer Winter is an admin. If they continue their current behavior they will split the community further and further. I believe that an admin who dosent fit with the community and cant play by their own rules cant represent the community.
In the end I just want change, I dont care if its tiny. Thanks for reading my huge ass text dump.
(This post is entirely my opinion by the way, if you disagree with anything I brought up or have any evidence to the contrary please do reply with it.)
When I spaced someone from the escape shuttle by accident,
Winter Cuteyraven bwoinked me asking the the fuck.
Was understanding in the ahelp and actually took my side explaining how not to do that mistake ever again
Gave me a note instead of immediately banning me
uwu
A fair and investigative Admin who takes into account the intent of the players when dealing with tickets. Iāve recently been banned for a day, but that was by my own request since I didnāt realize I broke the rules. At the time Winter wanted to simply issue a note, and understood that what was done and why.
In fact, I specifically requested a ban be issued because Winter understanding the situation and showing clemency was interpreted by another player as leniency and I did not want that to be the image that Winter gets simply due to a fair and investigative mindset.