What do you think of the Wallening, in general? (Free response)

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Player: needed alot more development time and was pushed through too quick leaving the server with two functional maps destroying the population.
Player: Everyone's a little panicked about it. I do not think it should've been merged so early. But I don't feel that indicative of a systemic issue with the code maintainers. It was just a single miscalculation (albeit a large one).
Player: I really hate it And I wish it would never return
Player: Undercooked, the tile offset is awful, I'd prefer tgmc's faux style tbh
Player: Rushed, buggy, unfitting artstyle, unfixable "features" like the offset and increased clutter
Player: I think it could look great if it was squished to 32x32, I don't like the black void inside the walls mixed with the display case looking windows, and how window frames got changed (looking at you grille block). I wish things like making Firelocks transparent and unclickable or using shift to find objects that were previously easily findable are good "fixes" for problems we didn't have before. I would fully support wallening if it didn't come at such a huge gameplay cost.
Player: good concept, needs more development
Player: I wish it hadnt been testmerged as it was as it created a lot of bad blood involving it. TMing it on and off may have been better.
Player: I really enjoyed how the new walls looked, and while i do think it had some issues that needed ironing out, i think a lot of people overreacted.
Player: Unnecessary and breaks or broke literally every part of the game at some point
Player: Genuinely, it is a PR that exists purely to change shit for the sake of changing shit. The myth that if you don't change everything the server will go stagnant and lose all it's players is perpetuated without evidence. Wallening on top of that made readability drop HARD. Why should I have to hold shift just so I can see your new, smaller, awful, and almost camoflauged sprites? APCs, Air Alarms, Fire Alarms, Fire Cabinets, and so on, are all now not only at weird angles, but also so small and weirdly colored that, one, they blend in with everything, and two, even when I'm holding shift, I can't even fucking tell what's what. Like just because some paypiggy whale is willing to pay $1000 for something doesn't mean that the playerbase wants it. The playerbase won't die off if you keep everything the same, it will die off if you keep changing everything massively. Leave the walls alone. Unironically. Leave them alone. If you ABSOLUTELY have to change the art style, leave the perspective completely untouched, do not change it whatsoever. I'm not even shitposting. Do not goddamn touch it. It is like this for a reason, the entire game was built around it. Make wallening it's own server if you are sooooooooo deadset on it, and watch the playercounts speak for themselves. Don't force it on other servers.
Player: It reminds me of when a game you like gets a remake that completely abandons the game's previoius aesthetic in an effort to "modernize" it.
Player: It was form over function to an extreme degree.I do not like how it limited information or made it harder to percieve the same information. The holding shift to see things was interesting, but that was ultimately a solution to a problem the wallening caused.
Player: I was not opposed to the Wallening in and of itself. I think making an entire direction of the game almost entierly non-visible was a massive mistake. Making the game visually fresh and better is always something that the network should strive for. But heavily impacting readability and gameplay should always be the highest concern, rather than time put into making the PR.
Player: It was an out of touch vanity project with no regard for playability of a game.
Player: I don't see the necessity. In my personal opinion, I do not really think it offers any kind of substantial improvement over the current walls. I personally kind of like the janky 2d art style we have now, and I see no need to change it. That being said, I don't think its like the end of the world like some people do. Change the tile offset and I would get used to it and just move on with my life, but overall I would prefer things stay as they are now.
Player: I do not like that rooms have to be oriented north to make things usable. I think freedom of direction is far too valuable to lose over better walls.
Player: Its actually terrible breaks everything, makes everything weird looking hides a bunch of shit, fucks the double doors, its ass change it back.
Player: It would have been a fantastic addition had it been given a few more months to iron out all the bugs / concerns instead of forcemerging it
Player: My problems are none of the listed reasons in the previous question. My problems are with the clear cockiness of the wallening team and the attitude of it all; their blatant disregard for proper PR ettiquete (not writting a why it's good for the game, not making a proper changelog, etc) is deeply upsetting for mantainers to do. Furthermore, their attitude of "if you like the walls new look is subjective so any rational discourse regarding the wall is futile" was so, SO disrespectful and narrow-minded. There was valid stuff to complain about and there was 0 effort put to calm people down or explain the upsides, acting as if the goodness of the project was fully self-evident and with no elaboration needed. Do better, y'all.
Player: It showed the community the disparity between the coders and the playerbase, as many of us did not like the changes and were told to literally just leave.
Player: I do not like it. I preferred the plain 2d variants of walls without the 2.5d gimmick (Considering everything else in the game is 2d). It also greatly interferes with door hacking, using certain buttons, knowing which rock to mine, finding stuff on the walls, etc.
Player: dogshit art style doesnt fit the game atall
Player: Untested bullshit. The first TM should have indicated to the team that the wallening came out of the oven raw and needed more time to cook(months to years, not weeks or days mind you)--instead it was TM'd a second time with almost none of the glaring issues fixed. I literally couldn't get inside virology without admin or AI help on all 3 maps I played on(Tram, Meta and Delta). Speaking of tram, due to the number of wall button airlocks on the lower level, playing that map with the wallening was a nightmare. On top of that, the fishtank like windows look super fucked up--and that's not even touching the functionality issues of 3/4 walls or how things on the bottom wall can be hard to see/click. Fun fact: this isn't even my least favorite change(that was golems) but what made me stop playing the game was specifically how inescapable the wallening was to every job imaginable. With the golem rework I could just stop playing xenobiology(I did), but the wallening was omnipresent. Speaking of omnipresent, as I understand it, interactions with a number of space ruins were also broken. So yeah, to reiterate--the wallening was untested bullshit, and I was/am sick of being a guinea pig to coders who don't properly test their changes before TMing them. I still don't want to play this game even after the revert. The bad faith is unbelievable in this coderbase.
Player: The wallening was a horrible update that brought hundreds of bugs while offering nothing of value other then "OOohh shiny walls". Starting with the issues of performance, lower end systems can no longer run the game without massive amounts of lag. Buttons became harder to notice or otherwise interact with, which affects gameplay. How did you guys fail to realize having to hold a button to show everything in the room beacuse it blended in so much is BAD. Furthermore, the change basically invalidated everything that wasn't on the north wall. If it was on west or east, It was horrible to use and horrible to notice (for example, light switches, APC's, etc). Anything on the south was basically nonexistent. Now to go on to the visual style. Spacestation13 has a VERY distinct visual style as topdown. Even goon, something that this update was commonly compared to, solved the issue rather nicely by still using a top down view even if the walls feel "3D". I feel like this change was only forced through despite feedback because the publisher of the PR was friends with the developers. The toxic behavior from staff in the PR and the blatant disregard for the large lashback from the community has made me never want this change, and if this were to get merged, I would permanently migrate to another spacestation13.
Player: I really liked lavaland and icebox mining in wallening. I liked the style. I thought apcs and stuff looked cool. Windows were straight up silly looking. They looked like aquariums. I liked the art style. I liked how it all looked. I didnt like the offset. I didnt like anything on the south wall being hidden. I especially had a hard time doing many basic things as the AI. I actually liked the wallening sprites alot. I really really hope you all were not totally burned out by the response and some sort of middle ground can be reached.
Player: 1: You cannot, cannot, cannot be blocking off parts of usable gamespace. Gamespace is limited enough as it is, and sacrificing it for a very subjective asethetic is unconscionable. 2: Particularly airlocks. Airlocks being a thin strip of colored pixels along a wall of colored pixels is INSANE. This problem is the worst with south wall airlocks but it's not good at all. A player needs to be aware of where all exits and entrances are at all times. If nothing, nothing at all else, airlocks need to have full sprites, always. 3: I just don't think the interior black spaces look very good. Especially on free standing wall segments where you can see all the way around them. For better or worse we simply do not see the world through the spaceman's eyes, but from above, and there's no reason for the walls to look like a weird ridge surrounding an empty void like the edges of a swimming pool from above. They should probably just be filled in with grey(or appropriate wall material color)
Player: I think it looks quite nice, but the problems it presents with objects on walls ultimately makes it somewhat of a hinderance.
Player: I've gone in-depth on this but the Wallening is an absolute mess. We take a super subjective artstyle with a litany of gameplay concessions, and say "Hey, yes. This is all worth a style change." and then push it. It's a flawed idea from the get-go because the people you're affecting most are the players, who may not all agree with those concessions. The wallening needs to shift direction from it's core idea of tallwalls. Look at things from a player perspective and try not to upset the game out of nowhere. Many people have suggested TGMC like walls, and those aren't a bad option, though I imagine that will not be something the team is happy to hear.
Player: i think it needs more time in the oven, y'know?
Player: I dislike that it forces the game to be directional, the top down perspective is superiour for a tile based game in my opinion
Player: I liked the idea of it, and there are definitely some parts (Like cult walls, I absolutely love them) that worked well. But I feel like at the end of the day too much is being lost compared to what's being gained. Stuff like loss of information from the wall covering it up, wall mounted stuff not working well if it's not on the south wall. I don't think it's worth it anymore, and I'm sort of worried that sunk costs will keep the Wallening from ever being abandoned as unfeasible.
Player: I genuinely like the idea and would love to see it implemented in the game, so long as it is never pushed through in such a terrible unfinished state, and as long as most, if not all, worries and matters brought up by the playerbase are correctly and respectfully addressed (so long as these are constructive themselves)
Player: I dont like it but i could bear it if it wasn't so buggy. Also transparent firelocks are really bad.
Player: Why radically change the art style and even perspective of the game?
Player: A couple of disjointed bullet points: - I'm fundamentally mildly opposed to it, because it fundamentally sacrifices readibility for detail. I think even if the bugs got ironed out, this problem will fundamentally persist - seperate spritework for directional wallmount items and small wallmount items will always be less readable than the old ones. While I don't want to oversell this negative and could certainly learn the new sprites with time, this readability loss would probably make the game even more overwhelming to new players, which kinda sucks. - The south walls covering part of the screen is the biggest loss of readability of any of this. If I only had one wish to change something, it would be this part. - Full merging something with this many bugs was utterly baffling. I the maintainers, in the past, have thrown up broken PRs as test merges, gotten bug reports that they were broken, and left them up and the servers in an utterly broken state for far longer than I thought acceptable in the past, but I still thought that they generally tried to refuse to merge code that they knew was bugged. I think this is a no-brainer and should be maintainer policy going forward. Assigning responsibility feels weird, because coders develop the game, for free, and to puff up my chest as an uncompensating consumer of their labor and demand that they never TM buggy code or whatever feels ridiculous, but I do think there's a conversation that needs to be had here. - All said, I would not leave tgstation because of the wallening (besides indirectly through player counts or whatever) anyway. It isn't *that* bad and I imagine the coders who built it had a horrible time during these last few weeks, which I find genuinely upsetting. <3
Player: i like it but im a mapper so it sucks
Player: I did not like it. It was not needed.
Player: Interesting concept, but I think it shakes up gameplay too much in a negative way that the positives do not make up for.
Player: its terrible, please just revert it- way too many bugs, huge mechanical change to breaking and entry (so much harder now for electric grilles because you can't throw things to break in). and it just looks bad
Player: it seems like a good idea on paper but it just didnt fit TG station
Player: Overall feels like a badly implemented downgrade to what we had, forced through because of the amount of work already done on it. Huge, glaring problems like the readability of all wall mounted objects being near zero was somehow overlooked - and now has half assed fixes like a terrible hold shift to see things overlay. Most wall mounted objects being slightly different 4 pixel wide gray boxes somehow not being noticed as a problem during all the hours this was being worked on by multiple people makes it feels like actual playability of this new system was barely considered during development.
Player: I don't like it. It ruined muh posters.
Player: It shows promise and I think most of the sprites look excellent. The bugs are expected and I expect they'll get worked out eventually. The offsets on all players and most structures, in my opinion, does not work well at all and makes too many issues.
Player: Other than the obvious entries from the other vote, I feel the execution, and handling of the subsequent fallout was an abject disaster. It was plain and simple the pushing of an unfinished product and a group of invested individuals and their supporters refusing to accept any criticism. The people giving the criticism then doubled down and became more aggressive in a way I don't agree with, even if I supported their position. This could be much better handled if there were avenues for the people developing the codebase to actively communicate, or appoint someone to communicate on their behalf what they are working on and their thought process behind the development of new features. This would allow active discussion of new features before they go live and could allow the players the ability to have more of a say on what gets added to the codebase. As it stands the codebase feels like a black box in which the only way to contribute to the game is you learn how to use it, or pay someone, and even then so many good ideas are squashed by coders and maintainers that feel like they have the better vision of SS13 than the players do. This is a crossroads for our community to actually allow players to have more of a say because I feel this shows how out of touch the coderbus is with what the average player wants. We need to facilitate better communication that the codebase exists for the players to play on first and the coders contributions is in service of them, not the other way around.
Player: This is an incredible idea. The execution was just poor. I love that the coders and admins are constantly pushing the game to new limits and trying new things there is nothing negative to say about the idea. The poor reception was in the execution I believe.
Player: I think it requires a HEAVY amount of map redesign to incorporate all of the existing features and fixtures. Also, not forcing it on everybody regardless of feedback, that's good too.
Player: I strongly believe it breaks gameplay and makes it harder to play in general. Also if we put ourselves in the shoes of a new player, the controls are already hard enough to learn but now there's an added layer of complex controls. When i hop on /tg/, i expect the classic style of gameplay of ss13. Not something that a niche server would do. For coders in general (if you guys even care reading about polls): How many more times will the players accept being treated like shit by you, when you don't/barely play the game / make changes to the game just because you got robusted? And no, if you only play on either lrp or mrp you shouldn't be able to just make changes that will fit their roleplay play style.
Player: I think it looks great, from a technical standpoint. I think the accomplishments that were made to make something like that in a janky 1997 game engine were awesome. When I saw screenshots posted of it, I thought it looked so cool. I was actually pretty excited for it. Then, with August getting closer, and more discussion on the wallening popping up, I realized that, as a mapper, this change was bad. I had been working on maps for a while - I overhauled the NTSS Independence, which I was very proud of, and I had recently started an update of old Boxstation. I saw that much of the creativity I had put into my maps would be lost when the wallening went through. It made me sad, and when I voiced my concerns with the maintainers, I was told that the losses in decorations were an "unfortunate casualty [with] no solution", a statement which irritated me. Then, the testmerge started. I played one round. I found it nigh unplayable. At one point, I had to stand up from my PC because of nausea. OOC chat was more active than the common radio channel, with people starting the round talking about how cool it looked, then it became overwhelmingly negative. I stayed off Manuel since that round, since I couldn't play, and went to Campbell. Then, it got merged and I quit. If the wallening did one thing well, it was break the addiction for many. Maybe that's a good thing. Also, I really disliked all the shit-flinging in the forum thread and the PR comments. From both pro-walleners and anti-walleners, it really sucked. I get that having worked 4 years on a project only for it to be received poorly sucks, but the behaviours of the coders and the spriters really only made the situation even worse.
Player: Suddenly new everything, untested and unvoted on. Broke the game was kinda lame. No need to be SS14
Player: If it has to be 32x48 then I will never want it. I don't see why it couldn't just be 32x32 like literally every other server. The artstyle it introduces is also much more complex, to the point where I feel that people will be intimidated away from contributing due to their sprites not meshing in with the style. The old style was simplistic enough that fairly rudimentary sprites could fit right in without much of an issue. But now, with the new style, anything simple would stick out like a sore thumb. Not everyone's spriting ability is at a high enough level to match the style, and that will dissuade at least some contributions. I consider the easy-to-contribute nature of TG to be one of its greatest strengths, and it would be awful to lose that over a mere stylistic change.
Player: It looks nice. it does, But not for ss13, everything blends into the walls, pressing things is way to annoying and hard to look for, the shift viewing is really buggy and still clutters everything. It's just not a good time. Thank you for putting your heart and soul into the sprites and what not but it just isnt the right choice.
Player: everything was hard to click
Player: Shouldn't have happened, shouldn't continue to be pursued. It needs to be completely scrapped.
Player: I'm not as adverse as others, but Im sad that it killed sybil, and I dont want to play mrp, so I'm waiting and seeing what happens. On its own, I think the wallening is all visually great, but the needed improvement from here is about readability and clickability, imo, playability takes priority, realism needs to be sacrificed for it, more than it already has, to be specific. For example, wall mounted machines are hard to see because theyre shaped and placed realistically, sticking them out further aggrevates the claustrophobia problem, the alt key ghosting overlay is a good try, but clunky in practice, but what if all of them extended up their wall, wrapping over the edge, giving the player a clear readable, color coded target they can recognize from the corner of their eye? Visual space is available on the tops of the walls, I suggest using it. I do this kind of thing professionally, but I don't want to backseat, I hope that example conveys what I'm getting at, or it provokes some thought on where to go. From a higher level, I recommend a revert to take the wallening back offline to lab for adjustment, and to test merge periodically as part of the iterative loop, and getting a temperature check of how the players feel about it each time, they should warm up to it. -robustitron
Player: was not in any state to be released to production
Player: I liked how it looked but damn I did not want to play engi and mess with piping or wires
Player: I feel like it's a natural evolution because many other servers have worked their way to that point. However, I think certain things need to be remapped and improved before implementation - and it's probably better to have a special map or test server for this. For example, the "double windoors" in some places were extremely difficult to interact with and disorienting. It was often hard to tell if you clicked on it or not, or difficult to tell what their position in space was. There may be janky ways to make the visual field work. I really liked certain items. But changes like these should be made gradually to protect from mass outrage.
Player: The Wallening is an initiative that on principle is sensible and allows for a greater degree of development for the visual style of SS13. However, it is also one that will cause a large period of development work where it is in a less than ideal state due to being released still in the process of refinement. It would take a considerably larger again amount of work to shift the games visual style towards a cohesive whole. We cannot expect our players to tolerate the game in an otherwise half-baked state when it has direct gameplay impeding ramifications. And I have my doubts that the work needed to be done to reach that point isn't going to burn out a large number of our developers. The last thing we would ever want is for the Wallening to be left in a half-finished state waiting for someone else to pick it up and finish it.
Player: I got paid 25 bucks for helping out on it but I don't think the frill system is or will be conductive to good feeling gameplay as long as we are keeping a tile based movement system. I think our best route ahead for the /tg/station project is to borrow the wall sprites from that shuttle server and to adapt our new cool wallframe sprites to those(respriting the south wall directionals). .,!?:;-
Player: Good idea, i like the new artstyle but i dont think it was tested enough. stuff was hard to click and it was hard to know what tile your on
Player: The walls are fine as they are. I'd rather use the time and skill for other stuff.
Player: Base sprites are good. Perspective shift on the whole does not fit with established mechanics and gameplay in my opinion.
Player: Does not fit well with the ss13 style. It was also pushed in hurry without testing and it seems it was what we call "pre alpha release" My advice for the spriters before releasing any graphic or sprite changes they need to ensure it is compaitable without any issues to the current sprites.
Player: My feelings on the project were initially positive, but the more I played, the more I began to sour on it. There is a character limit for this response form, so TLDR of what I want to see going forward: -Scheduled testing that rotates between the main servers. One server plays with the Wallening merged for a few days, then it rotates to the next. Gather feedback from the first server, then the second, then the third. Implement feedback once the testing phase is complete and test again down the line. -All wall mounted objects are fully sprited so they don't look strangely offset from the wall, or downright invisible. Look at the tramstation airlocks, or keycard authentication devices in Head of Staff offices to immediately see problems. -Maps are tested with the Wallening so we don't have instances of doors that are rotated the wrong way at round start. A little testing here goes a long way. -Construction steps for objects isn't pointlessly changed without notice, or the most vital wall-mounted objects like APCs are tested to make sure their construction steps still work. -Visual clarity for R-Windows and normal Windows, and normal Walls and R-Walls. Put both of them side by side and at first glance they don't look very different. What I enjoyed: -The full tile Window sprites! The "aquarium" windows were my favorite resprite and really fit the vibe we're on a space station. -The cutaway circle when you would approach a wall below the player. I would like to see the radius expanded one or two tiles though for clarity's sake. -The new monitor sprites. -Maints felt claustrophobic with the new walls.
Player: It's curse wall i don't like it
Player: remove it please
Player: I think it looks cool but affects gameplay too much to be a beneficial change
Player: The textures are beautiful and I love the art direction. The only downside is that the lower quarter of tiles are obstructed by walls but that's literally it.
Player: HATE
Player: Great ambition, toxic environment led to the rollout being completely fumbled however and its hard to differentiate the specifics there but it must be addressed or itll happen again
Player: i think the artstyle is ok, but i think it should not have been implemented in its current state, i don't like the change in perspective, and think it was a complete waste of effort
Player: its pointless really and just made the game a bit worse...nobody liked it so sorry.
Player: Looks cool. Gets too much flack. The style is alright. The one thing that would probably really need a resprite to match is floors.
Player: In general, I think the wallening was a good idea, but it went too far in terms of shifting the artstyle, resulting in a lot of player resentment due to most of them experiencing these walls for the first time and general sentiment that the wallening would be pushed on them. When players reacted and gave feedback and criticism, some of it went seemingly unheard while others with valid criticism or feedback got struck in the crossfire of coders telling them to just leave.
Player: I just feel like it was not great for the community and not well planned as evident by the bugs and 40-50 less players
Player: need to resprite every single item
Player: The wallening was a good idea on paper to improve TG's artstyle but it was horribly executed.
Player: It's absolutely gorgeous, but I'll be damned if it isn't more visually noisy. For a game where I have to click on a lot of things, these walls are way harder to work with.
Player: I think the wallening runs counter to the goal of attracting new players. If veterans are having such a hard time with simple things such as identifying APCs, think of how monumentally difficult the game is for a new player. Readability always needs to be the foremost primary concern and having to memorize three additional semi-obscured sprites for every wall item increases the difficulty for little payoff. Performance chugs even on decently powerful PCs. All the fixes, like holding shift to see wallmounts, feel like they're janky bandage solutions to the core design problems of the wallening. You can't even do cool stuff like hide behind corners/walls thanks to the offset.
Player: art style is pretty, but the affected gameplay areas are irritating to the point of unplayability - the offset mostly, but the clicking and visual identification issues on east/west/south walls also suck big ballz. not a fan of the poor readability of sprites for wall mounts on those walls. on the whole, absolutely none of the issues wallening created are worth exchanging for prettier visuals. if it's relevant, having followed the developer feedback fairly closely, i was also broadly disappointed by how starkly out of touch the involved persons were - i think the severity of the resulting backlash speaks for itself in that regard. if these people want to hold directive power over a codebase so many people play on, they ought to make decisions from a point of view less focused on their colon. i am still unconvinced that they appreciate the full scale of the problem they created.
Player: I think the wallening was too devisive of a thing to fully merge in the state it shipped in, and that the timeframe over which it was created was too long; a lot of newer assets (and even some older ones) weren't accounted for due to how long it took to merge.
Player: I appreciate the amount of effort put into the Wallening by its many contributors, but feel that the project is fundamentally incompatible with a significant amount of the tgStation playerbase, including myself. The walls on other servers such as TGMC and Goon provide similar perspective shifts with much fewer issues. Unfortunately I cannot see many of these issues, such as the loss of visual clarity and troubles with wall-mounts, being fixed due to the Wallening's goal of true 3-4ths perspective. Band-aid fixes should not be the solution; if they serve as the only solution, then the project as a whole is flawed.
Player: Very bad. I cannot see a single positive in wallening.
Player: It was merged in a clearly unfinished state and started a lot of drama ever science it was brought to light. Next time something like this gets merged there should be a vote on the discord before anything happens
Player: idk
Player: I think its an example of the sunk-cost fallacy
Player: Just, a simple question, what if instead of changing shit completely, just to try to improve it a little, there is no need to reinvent the bike that works just fine.
Player: Current coderbus making mistakes by mistakes. Bcs try to putting 3d in 2d game. I really hate it, but cannt change it. Our comrades was take /tg/build before "Wallening".
Player: I like the new look, but its clear it needs a lot more work before its ready. There are a lot of issues with trying to click things and visual clarity on how close things are.
Player: The button-placement glitches seemed manageable, and even the ordering of wall-mounteds. But the only absolute fucking tripe of an issue was the complete loss of clicking-clarity to interact. Items were permanently "overshadowed" by the hitboxes of walls, wall-mounted items, etc. etc. etc. Drove me barking mad as Med Doc trying to treat a patient when all I could click on was walls or wall-mounteds. Or even just retrieving items printed by a lathe was horrid...
Player: I Understand what you'all were trying to do; Making a new artstyle and be more interesting...But i think the execution was kinda bad in many ways,mostly in the behavior of the maintainers (Orange like the biggest example) and the lack of true "Community hearing" that would be necessary in this type of testings. Soo yeah In a nutshell: I think being an asshole was the big problem that spark everything
Player: I must start by saying the idea itself is noble and the looks can be pretty nice... for a different game. Whenever I look at wallening I think about Underrail and that it'd look pretty good in a game like that, where you don't have to autistically click a very specific pixel to interact with anything or even fight I'm not gonna go on about problems people went on and on already, myself included and instead mention a different problem which aggreviated me and antagonised both me and many other people against the project: The way it was treated I'm aware you're explaining the project and there has been some shufling in headcoders, however the system is inhenerntly flawed and I don't think those things will fix it Project HAD to be done and it HAD to be merged, not just because Oranges didn't like freezes but also because of how much effort was put into it and the very much "I'm not okay with letting go"... which would be fine if it was channeled into fixing the worst bugs before testmerging it again and generally trying to smoothe the experience and make it somewhat less jarring and broken than jarring it in and disabling several maps (used during testmerge to make it most absurd) But as I said it was instead channeled into ignoring any non-bug related criticism and forcemerging anyway when the project needed more time and work So unrelated to all the other more mechanical issues people raised (which I share in 99%) I think a big problem of wallening and it's implementation was exactly how it was brought in and presented "Perfectly playable and finished and ready to be merged" is paraphrasing what mothblocks said nearly the start of the hundreds of comments on github and it summarises it pretty well
Player: Strongly dislike it. While it is not inherently a bad art style for all sprites, meaning it would probably work for some game out there, I do not think it works well for SS13. It ends up making every room feel weirdly cramped, things are harder to see, it limits the ability to do things on the up facing walls. I personally would quit TG if it was kept. While I understand there was a lot of effort spent on it, I think trying to improve it is not a good use of time. If you want a less top down view, I would recommend something more like TGMC.
Player: I am conflicted, but overall, I want to like it for it's graphical upgrade. It's visually very pleasing. However, the overall gameplay takes a serious hit in it's merged implementation (Walls obscuring objects, formerly wallmount objects being impossible to click on, etc.). I do not believe visuals should ever detract from the ability to play the game.
Player: The "Wallening" seems like a step forward, this way SS13 could get a lot more ahead of SS14 in terms of the overall geometric layout and step up to another era, the only problem I got with the new terrain textures (aside from the current bugs and almost unclickable apcs/lights) are the airlocks -they are kinda blending in at times if they aren't a completely different color, the vertical airlocks also look bit wider than their horizontal version. That's about it -Sincerely, Derek Drill ss13 player
Player: it has to many bugs looks rushed even tho it had the most coders so far for 4 years, how big and unavoidable the test merge was and lastly that generaly no one realy liked it or asked for the change i belive some might like some parts of it but if it is to be keept it should be similar to map votes in a way where (in a non weighted random) vote it is decided if the next round will have wallening sprites or not, that or just make it an option in the settings if thats even possible at all. some walls look decent but the new aspect and them being slightly offset upwards makes it hard if not impossible to use specialy the dark part inside them wich makes it very hard to weld walls and to open hidden doors in walls. talking about doors i think the airlocks should remain has they were before the wallening since the ones from it are anoying to deal with since you can only build ones in a certain direction and they act has walls if you don't use thier possition right wich causes issues specialy in shuttles where the doors simply will be in the wrong direction causing it to be impossible to walk in, this issue happens mostly in rcd/built doors and shuttles that are on the right or left instead of up or down specialy in the nukies shuttle and the birdshot evac shuttle (on its map) outside of that there is also the continued bug of apc's being impossible to build correctly even with admin help (bob strange had tried to help me out with one once but we couldn't get it right and he had to just give it low inf power).
Player: I like the idea, but it felt like TGstation was trying to reinvent the wheel on implementation to not be like goon or other servers. I actually quite like the way that Goon did it's wallening, which really helped with issues like wall mounts on the left and right walls, perspective, and not requiring an offset or eating part of a tile. Also, the communication around it was terrible. A massive pr like that neesd a really solid 'why it's good for the game' that goes beyond 'it looks good', ideally on the github or linked as a design document off the github. I'm not going to get into the other stuff around communicaiton because I'm sure everyone else has said it.
Player: As somebody who enjoys this style of perspective and artstyle in other games, I think that the current implementation of wallening isn't great. It works great in non-sandbox games or games that have very few interactable objects. And for the few objects that do exist, they're normally highlighted with an outline or a big text above them. Wallening also makes the game look completely different, to the point where it even plays differently. Personally, I stopped playing before DDOS happened (I think?). Because I found myself spending way too much energy just trying to process my surroundings and locate where stuff is, rather than looking for interesting situations. And not just on walls but also on tiles next to walls. To the point where I'd start experiencing headaches after 30-40 minutes of playing. Making frills permanently semi-transparent helped a bit, but idk.
Player: I think that I would have been able to come to terms with the Wallening with enough time. I think the perspective change that has been gradually been put on the game isn't necessarily very good looking, if only because the new sprites tend to be busier and harder to read in exchange for being "nicer". Objectively, some of them are. But it's a hard line to sacrifice readability for aesthetics, and wallening brought that to a head. Aesthetics purely aside, as they are not actionable, I think that no improvement of graphics, no matter how good, is worth the loss of an entire wall's worth of interactivity. Furthermore, for jobs where putting things on tables on a regular basis (botany, chef, chemistry, medical), certain directions, particularly east-west, became an absolute nightmare of interactivity. Additionally, the maintainer response of "love it or leave it", either real or perceived, made me definitely shift from "I'll get used to it eventually" to "guess I'll just leave it". I honestly don't want to see the Wallening return, but if it is was done with better bug fixing, humility, and interactivity, I'd at least suck it up and accept it. I'll never be thrilled about it.
Player: I genuinely really like it, one of the biggest gripes I had in this game is that walls did not make sense at all with the rest of the perspective, and it fixed that. I didn't see any big issue with the wallening inherently that couldn't be fixed, but it was merged undercooked, and the community took a toll. It's not worth to lose the server over it
Player: I think it's fine by itself but the implementation was very poor.
Player: Why try to fix something that isn't broken?
Player: its ugly, terrible for gameplay, hides too many things, and it has created a divide and drama among players, it shouldnt exist.
Player: Overall, I think its great. It looks fantastic, and my only real issues are the various bugs. If you pushed me, I MIGHT say I dislike how the walls look on lavaland/icebox for mining, but the bulk of my issues with the wallening are just the bugs, which can be fixed. The new blob tiles look fucking fantastic, I love them. Im sorry for all the vitriol that has come of this. I know you guys worked hard on it, and I do want to see those efforts bear fruit. Good luck soldiers o7
Player: Why even do i? It is so bad, so unnecessary!
Player: bring back nebula wallening ugly
Player: It has potential to be good, I really want to like it but it may need more time for it to be good.
Player: I think it looks good but it needs to cook more for gameplay
Player: i can respect the amount of work that went into it, there's obvious talent and heart put into it, but i think it was misguided entirely in believing that it could work as good/work better than the current walls. i'd love to have seen the work go into a more conventional perspective shift resprite that didnt require the weird rendering and offsets/sweeping resprites, as well as something that wouldn't require the "shift to actually see where wallmounts are in a room." tl;dr i respect the spritework but it's mechanically worse and less readable than the current old walls
Player: Ambitious idea, but any sort of visual upgrade will always take a backseat to mechanical clarity and convenience. One of the big issues is wall mounts being much tougher to use besides south facing ones, but offset obscuring combat is also an insanely large one.
Player: Personally I've done my best to stay out of everything, but I don't really mind the new changes after playing with it for a while. I'm confident any issues will be ironed out.
Player: it's bad do it better
Player: Visually pleasing, but fundamentally flawed in how it impacts wallmounts, visibility, etc. Losing the ability to show "display" items like paintings, posters, screens on all but one side of the walls isn't worth the improvement in art.
Player: Im Really sorry but I think it just looks bad, both in normal play but expecialy with mesons/xray The artstyle looks cartoony and the apcs and fire alarms going over the top lip of the wall makes them look like they are far above the humans head and baddly clipping like a gmod prop, the offset makes my brain funny and it just looks "wrong" I know many worked hard on tall walls but this is just not it, 32z32 3/4 walls would be a much better visual upgrade, as long as they lack the black void
Player: the sprite jumble is frustrating, the offset is bad. Don't add it. TGMC walls would be far better.
Player: I'm not overly fond of the look on TG, especially with the variable levels compared to something like Baystation or Eris Station's walls. It's also difficult for gameplay by the looks of it. I understand it took a lot of work to make but I don't think that this should be merged even once the bugs are fixed because of the adverse gameplay effects and also because at least personally I think it looks odd and doesn't fit well.
Player: I don't mind it, as someone who doesn't mess with the more technical aspects of the game (atmos, engi). I liked the style change.
Player: Its a good-faith effort to tweak the graphics of the game to a unique state. Unfortunately it clashes with the existing art-style of the game thats really iconic because its inconsistent. Also it would alter gameplay too seriously, the game already is bloated with lots of affordances with UI, once you start hitting affordances in immediate elements like walls (in the form of holding shift to see objects on hidden by the angles of the wall) now its a serious problem. Personally I think it also heavily contributes to visual dis-clarity because of the black space between the walls and airlocks, remove that and it fixes around 60 percent of the problem in my personal opinion with the design of them, so many times now Ive clicked on the wrong wall multiple times because of this, also due to clicking on walls now still making me select the tile instead of the wall, not sure how that could be fixed. Lastly the top of walls is exactly what makes this kind of style work in the first place in games that have this camera angle -Nuclear Throne is a phenomenal example-, although, one thing to note in those games is: the color palette intentionally tries to differentiate the walls from the floor, and both of those from elements that populate the space the player interacts in. Entities, objects, and effects all should have distinctly different colors from the walls, and trying to re-do the entire system of walls will end up adding on far more scope to the project than initially imagined. Remember, this is Space Station 13 were talking about, no change like this can be simple, Im sure everyone working on this project is aware of that, this change especially highlights just how interwoven the several complicated systems of this game are with the gameplay, and design. Its an intricate balance, and Id hate the hard work people put into this project to go to waste, but they either have to come to terms with the sheer scope theyre handling or reducing the ambition of their project and reeling it back a bit -at least for now-.
Player: I think it's a bold move to make. TG station has literally always done stuff like this, i.e. major leaps in changes like ripping a bandaid off, then figuring out a compromise later on. Unfortunately a design choice like this is not something you can really compromise on. It looks nice but it's also just too clashing with the existing framework. Every new sprite or refactor just makes it more jank.
Player: It's a neat idea in concept but ultimately changing something like 3d -> 2d in a game this old is gonna be difficult on players
Player: I think that while being more distinct of a visual style, it utterly fails in the department of being functional. It's too much of a hastle to make while producing a sub par outcome that could be achieved with less work and effort by using the slanted, or faux 3/4 walls instead, which provide a visually distinct artstyle and perspective, while not compromising for the offset or requiring copius amounts of bugs and changes to be coded and pushed out over a month's worth of time.
Player: I felt as though it was a very wrong direction to go in for the game's future and wellbeing. simplicity is key, especially for an already fairly complex game like ss13. the wallening added complexity for the sake of complexity. form over function. And that will always feel worse for players, even if it looks good
Player: i like the old tg artstyle because it was very like chips challenge yet on its own unique. the new style looks more like meeplestation and i really dislike the art direction of that game. 2.5d is NOT a look that meshes with ss13.
Player: I was originally very hyped for it and I thought it would be a smash hit once it was done. Problem is, I don't think that what was merged was done at all. It was buggy, confusing, and overall straight up unfinished. At the point at which it was merged, the amount of sacrifices to gameplay, visiblity, and general feel of the game (bugs nonwithstanding) detracted massively from the visual changes, which were amazing looking. A lot of very talented people worked on it, and it shows, but because of reasons i cannot fathom it was rushed out of the door.
Player: The nature of wallening will always be disadvantage gameplay wise, for example: From character's POV you would see entire sprite of an object(example: Wall mounted Fire extingusher). However in player's POV you only see very little of it, what normally would be easier to spot for character it is harder for player in control of that character thus giving gameplay disadvantage. Pre-wallening style did not had that as an issue since character and player seen same perspective of that specific object besides it being upside down for a player itself. It had best outcome for gameplay but less appealing for an eye. That's my personal opinion, surely there's ways to fix it that I am unware of and I hope spriters will solve it in upcoming future.
Player: Not a fan
Player: I think it is conceptually sound, but without proper testing and consideration of community feedback, it will only serve to worsen the experience for players new and old. I do like the artstyle, but the offset and it's bugs do not make the game more enjoyable.
Player: should have gone with 32x32 man
Player: Good idea, bad implementation.
Player: Absolutely amazing! I can see some great potential with this.
Player: (summary of a 3 page essay that the poll wouldn't accept) Overall I did not enjoy it. Sprites were overall harder to see, wall-mounted things especially were both harder to see and click on which made gameplay worse. The holding shift solution just added more clutter to the screen. Shaft miner and AI were unfun because of walls being a black void on top and atmos tech piping/SM setup was difficult. 3/4th perspective threw me off alot. I kept thinking things were a tile below where they actually were. Walls coving the tiles behind them was annoying and made seeing objects and in some cases, players more difficult due to them being covered most of the time. Art of sprites looked good from a consistancy stand-point, but a lot just made things more visually cluttered. Not good for game about clicking stuff and seeing objects on screen. Gameplay wise, window frames were unfun and made breaking windows harder. intangible shutters and blast doors made wire-hacking impossible. Also game was much more laggier TLDR I did not enjoy wallening and felt it just added more issues and problems to the game and didn't improve much.
Player: I think the artstyle is great but I feel everything looks a lot more bland with the restrictions and wall mountable items. I also am really not a fan of how AI displays and Status displays take up the tile adjacent to it, which has caused me issues during surgery multiple times.
Player: I think it was a good idea in concept, but the execution was not good enough. To completely re-do the walls would require having to fix everything that connects, and gets pasted onto walls (Paintings/posters are my big gripe). It just seems to me, that for a "free" open source game, that the team does not have the time/power to properly implement such a large change to the game. Again, it was a good idea on paper , and it likely needed to be tested like this in order to come to the conclusion that the man power required to fix everything was not there. I think this coding effort should be applied to creating new features/new sprites to make new features and game modes. Less porting things from other servers. FR though, Thank you to the coders and spriters for sticking with such an old game/engine for everyone who is a player. Without people who know how BYOND works, it would be a dead game.
Player: I think the wallening is okay visually. I feel like it'd be beautiful for some games, but given the amount of stuff SS13 puts on the walls, you simply can't convey the same information as well as the walls were before. I think it would be a shame for all of that work to go to waste, but I don't think it's the right fit for this game.
Player: Really big fan of it, hope it's shortcomings can be sorted out, and the community can actually deal with change for once.
Player: It made me feel sick any time I tryed to play with it I got motion sickness and everything in general just felt very off
Player: I want it to burn in hell, I swear to god I will tide on another server if it comes back
Player: I originally liked it a little, till i experienced a bunch of bugs. Now there is such a huge stigma and hate against it that I do not think it will actually be able to be let through. A lot of players left and if I see a wallening wall again I am going to be remimded of the drama and all of my friends that left because of it.
Player: It was unnecessary and ultimately detrimental. The game looked and played fine as-is. I understand there was a lot of work put into the wallening and the ambition behind it was respectable, but in the end it caused way too many issues to be worth it, and there are fundamental issues like the offset and lack of visual clarity that can never be fixed just because they are essential for the wallening to work. I don't understand what was wrong with our current walls (other than being kinda bland), I don't understand why those working on the wallening had to go with 32x48 walls, I don't understand why they couldn't just make the new walls more like Goon or TGMC walls which have been proven to work instead of spending so much effort on something so radical. I really wish coders understood that unwarranted and buggy changes really take enjoyment out of the game for the playerbase. I myself have contributed to the repo but I think other contributors need to realize that a vast majority of players don't know how to code, don't look at the github, and don't know how to make issue reports. They just log in one day to see that the game looks completely different and everything is fucking broken and that the evening they were looking forwards to, playing SS13 after a day of classes or work, is now ruined.
Player: trading functionality, accessibility, readability, ease of use, for sprites that look good is not cool. i dont care how the sprites look so the only things that affect me are the downsides like the mob offset
Player: It doesnt look good for tg. It is too hard to see things on the walls. They just kinda look bad having these square grilles and windows, its dumb looking. Its just not good
Player: I loaded up a private server with wallening to play around with things a bit free of the DDOS. In general I think the sprites looks nice but the perspective harms the detail on anything facing Northwards. Clicking on things was a bit weird, but I feel like I could get past it given time. My biggest issue was seeing how the team was handling feedback, including some that definitely seemed actionable. At a certain point I was pushed away by attitudes more than the change. Fundamentally I don't think the wallening would "ruin" tgstation but I do think it will introduce an adjustment period, and you'll definitely lose some of the older player base.
Player: The wallening and the perspective are a nice touch but the issues with wall collision and vision obstruction need to be improved.
Player: can't say much about it, but as many more people said before me - we don't play in our "spacemen-game" cause it's fancy look, it's all about readability. And with the new walls, there is such a mess on my screen. Don't even wanna speak about the tiny buttons, some of that completely gone or hidden in some weird way, or obscured little items behinde south walls or some other obstacles like firelocks. So the walls itself, i mean, the sprites - can be like "okay-tier", but all other stuff that comes with it.. uhhh, don't wanna be mean, but it's just bad.
Player: It fucks up posters and paintings, which personally is important to me. I don't like 3/4ths either, as it makes you feel more like you're playing a "god sim". No one plays SS13 for the graphics, they play it for the in depth gameplay, complexity, and sandbox features. Walls are background noise that you don't even pay attention to after 5 minutes of playing the game.
Player: handled poorly but it definitely has potential
Player: I like the idea. It hides too much and I feel people who made it thought more about how it looks on paper than how it looks "ingame" so to say. Detailed wall sprites are cool, but they add a lot of visual information to the screen, drawing the eye away from other important information and feeling like and overfill of info or something like that.
Player: It was just so poorly thought out. Things were made so unreadable and harder to click and see. The tile offset looked really bad and the shadows underneath characters made it look worse. I prefer stuff that's readable and easy to know what it is at a glance.
Player: Being able to read the game and find things to click on is more important than stylistic changes
Player: I don't like the visual style, and I don't like the idea of sacrificing gameplay readability and game playability for a visual upgrade. I play SS13, I didn't fall in love with this game because it looked good.
Player: Honestly, the walls themselves aren't that bad and have some interesting possibilities like wallpaper. BUT, the decreased visibility amoung other issues like motion sickness make it a deal breaker for me. The glass walls look bad incomparison to the metal ones.
Player: I don't believe walls were given a proper chance in the state they were in. But with that said, the first week was invisible wall mess and directional airlock mess. I hope to see it once more in the future with them building up 4 pixels at time like 32x36, to 32x40, to 32x44, and lastly 32x48 and see what actually was the sweet spot for offset.
Player: it has potential,but its like cyberpunk when it was released,buggy and horrible,with enough time I trust yall will make it actualy good
Player: it doesnt fit tg,
Player: I think it is a mistake to lose the function of the game for visuals. If it is to attract new players by screenshot, i think that the sort of person who will not play ss13 because of how it looks will probably quit for one of the many other reasons that the game remains niche. Otherwise, I do not honestly think that it should be implemented unless everything else is brought to the 3/4 visual style, but that is so big of a project that it would never happen at once.
Player: I think the wallening was okay, I think the way it was handled was bad but the art style itself was good, I very much liked i, espesically when holding shift was added to actually see what was on the actual was
Player: A neat idea that is, unfortunately, fundementally flawed in it's base foundations. The character offset is nonsensical with everything else being tile based. Stuff being obstructed by the new tall walls is simply annoying. Wall mounts on the sides of walls and to the south have been improved but it still feels kind of worse than previously. Granted, this could just be due to the fact that I'm not used to it yet, I suppose.
Player: It became the flashpoint for the slowly-growing mutual dislike between players and certain contributer-side individuals, and the fact that there's talk of re-merging it genuinely causes me to question if the server is going to make it- It's been made abundantly clear that a majority of players don't want it in any form whatsoever, and that they can and will pack up and leave over it. Also I personally hate the perspective shift enough to leave if it's implimented- just do "toblerone" walls or something like every other server. Multi-tile-tall walls simply have too much spaghetti needed to function, and BYOND/SS13 is already 99% Spaghetti.
Player: Personally, I feel like people overreacted to it, once the bugs are ironed out I think it will be a good update.
Player: I think that its good that the game has continuous updates but it seems like this was a passion project for a tiny number of creators that really shouldn't have been railroaded in. TG is lucky enough to be the main branch for a huge number of offbranches and I think they should consider this. Too radical of a change essentially forces it on those servers too. I think the old walls were perfectly fit for purpose. I do not think the offset should exist and the walls should never be tall, I think that SS13 is a particular style of game and doesn't need to be made radically different. Having to press shift to see items on walls adds an extra step to everything and is inherently poor design.
Player: i think it a verry bad redesign that no one ask for it and it make the game in general less clear and harder to play + the response of the admin was terrible and half of the players lost ther faith in the devs
Player: Spacestation 13 is not a pretty game. I play the game because of the gameplay and the other people that play with me. I feel like the wallening is sacrificing a huge portion of the gameplay to focus on a part of the game that isn't important to me. Making it difficult to see objects on 3 out of 4 walls hurts gameplay too much. I really dislike the required 16 pixel player offset to make the 32x48 walls appear better. I can learn to play with it, but I'd rather not. There are too many other versions of this game that don't have it. It's very different and difficult for me to adjust between them if I wanted to play a round somewhere else.
Player: I do not like the Wallening. It looks bad and makes the game significantly worse to play in every respect. We do not need to change this.
Player: I understand wanting higher sprite detail, but I feel too much was sacrificed in pursuit of it. The wallening simply has too many issues. Even if all of the bugs were fixed, it would still have issues. I personally have stopped playing the game due to these changes. I find myself unable to focus as easily. Some of the issues include visual clarity (such as whether or not a door is open), the sprite offsets, and the fact that you have to enter a "sherlock holmes" mode with a dedicated button to just see things on non north walls now. A sprite change should not result in map changes being required.
Player: It was okay visually, although it made gameplay more difficult (less distinct wallmounts, walls obscuring things, player model offset is a bad decision because it makes aiming with ranged weapons harder)
Player: Good but definitely needs more time in the oven.
Player: ttfgujgh hgfh jj
Player: It is an unnecesary change, only added because the ""coders"" worked ""so hard"" on it (clearly barely worked on it for 2 years with all the SEEMINGLY OBVIOUS BUGS). All wallening did was overcomplicate and add bugs- some people might think it looks better, personally I don't like the tall walls, but the problem was the bugs. If you work 2 years on something, and you still get so many bugs (yes I know testmerging is how you get rid of bugs, but this was FULLY MERGED WITH BUGS THAT WERE REPORTED), maybe you should spend an extra year on it.
Player: My feedback was too long to post, so I put it in a paste bin, please read it, and thank you: https://pastebin.com/SGEKQn04
Player: Nice try, needs a bit MORE cooking. DO NOT like that wall objects are a LOT harder to find. DO NOT like doors being directional(left/right will work but break up/down. just makes a lot of gameplay break if theres a bug DO LIKE the aethetic
Player: I love the wallening! There's some bugs related to mapping and construction, and some of the wallmounts could use better directional sprites, but otherwise really love it!!!
Player: It has potential but really needs more development to be playable
Player: i really like the style its cool
Player: Handled very bad more so when it was not in a position to be merged. I understand that the only reasonable way to get work done is to shove it down people's throat but, surprisingly, as it turned out, people fucked off. If it was testmerged people would again fuck off. It looks ugly. There are better sprites for 3/4 walls on other servers you most certainly did not need 4 years for this. An entire B.Sc's worth of time for this poor work, maybe some of you should rethink your coding capabilities, there are excellent Youtube lectures.
Player: I will not play on here as long as the wallening is in place, and if it's what's going to happen then I guess I'll find a new server.

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